How We Operate
by MusicWritesMyLife
Summary: A freak snowstorm lands Owen and Cristina in a strange place: Derek's trailer. Sparks fly. After S5 Ep10. Please R&R
1. A Drink to Loneliness and Pain

**A/N: Just made a formatting edit...so if anyone got any alerts sorry! You don't need to read it again or anything. **

It had been a long day. Too long. Not only was she on a two-week probation for not telling anyone about that stupid thing with the interns—which she hadn't said anything about because she'd thought it was handled—but she'd had to pick one of her fellow residents to perform the solo surgery that all the attendings had unanimously awarded to her. To top it all off, she'd had a major make-out session with Owen Hunt, which had been nice. Okay, maybe nice was an understatement. It had been steamy and passionate, and way better than anything she'd ever felt with Burke, which scared her. She wasn't used to feeling so wild and out of control. She was Cristina Yang, top first-year resident, future cardio god. Usually. But now her interns were going around performing appendectomies on each other, and she and Meredith weren't speaking, and she was making out with Owen Hunt, sexy ex-military virtual stranger who thought she was beautiful. No one had ever called her beautiful before—not even Burke.

Cristina Yang was not in control anymore.

She wondered if this was how Callie felt. Having discovered you might actually be into girls and then getting dumped by your girlfriend must make you feel pretty helpless. Maybe they could commiserate together, even though Cristina didn't normally open up to anyone other than Meredith. Now that Mer was off-limits, though, she was beginning to reconsider.

Cristina sighed and pushed loose strands of hair out of her face. She didn't know what to do anymore. She'd almost lost it in the gallery, which was atypical for her. Then again, she'd had to sit in the gallery watching Karev prep for the solo surgery—her surgery—and listen to Meredith saying she understood that Cristina couldn't make it personal. She was the one who was making it personal. Screwing McDreamy—living with him no less. Meredith had no sense of judgement anymore. Cristina wanted to hit her. Going around like this was all Cristina's fault, when she was the one who hadn't been there for Cristina.

And then there was this thing with Owen. He inspired passion in her that she'd never felt before. He was so intense, so driven and commanding in the field, and yet around her he didn't seem to know what to say. And then out of the blue, he would be there for her when no one else was, showing her a new safe haven where no one would find her. He was so different than Burke; so different, but it was a good different. Besides, Burke had never made her feel this way. Not even close. They would have gone on kissing for hours had Owen's pager not gone off.

She needed to go home, have a drink; something strong, and maybe she'd dance it out for a little bit, even though it was really any fun without Meredith. Alcohol would make her feel better. It would clear her head too, to help her figure out what to do about Owen. The kind of feelings she was feeling were dangerous and uncontrollable. Besides, Owen played so hot and cold that Cristina wasn't sure what to expect tomorrow. It would probably just be better to pretend it never happened.

Adjusting the strap of her bag, Cristina crossed the road to her apartment. The perks of living across the street: she was home within minutes of leaving. The only drawback was that her motorcycle barely saw any use anymore. Maybe she'd take it out for a ride. It would nice to get a thrill from doing something other than kissing Owen.

The five flights of stairs to the apartment were a pain in the ass, but it was more work than taking the elevator, and Cristina needed something to focus on in order to distract herself from her thoughts. She'd been pretty much alone with them all day, and it was driving her crazy.

"Hey." There must be someone up there who was on Cristina's side, because Callie was unlocking the door—arms full of a paper bag containing what looked suspiciously like alcohol—which meant that Cristina didn't have to go fishing in bag for her keys.

"Hey," Cristina replied. Callie looked almost as tired as she felt. Neither of them said anything more, tumbling into the apartment in silence. It seemed to be a fat mutually acknowledged that they'd both had a shitty day.

Cristina heard the telltale clinking of glass as Callie dropped her armful of paper bag on the counter. There was definitely alcohol of some kind in there. Wordlessly, Cristina dropped her bag on the floor and peeked into the bag. Sure enough, there were a couple of bottles of tequila. _Meredith's best friend_, she thought sadly. _Well not anymore, now that she's got Shepherd. Now she's all bright and shiny. _She hated bright and shiny people, and the fact that Meredith had become one—all gooey and sappy and full of love—made her sick.

Needing to put all of this behind her—if only temporarily—she opened one of the bottles and took a long swig. Here was the thing she loved about tequila: the instant gratification, how the burn of the alcohol sliding down your throat made you feel instantly better. Suddenly, everything that had happened didn't seem so bad.

"Callie?" Cristina glanced around for her roommate and was greeted by an empty apartment. She wasn't the only one who needed cheering up.

Callie was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and looking appropriately miserable. "Callie?" Cristina stuck her head in the door. "Go away," she mumbled without looking up.

"I've got tequila," Cristina said in a singsong voice, waving the bottle in front of her like it she was tempting a donkey with a carrot.

"No." Callie was stubborn, but so was Cristina. In fact, most of the arguments that occurred between them arose from the fact that both of them were too stubborn to back down.

Cristina shrugged. "Suit yourself. Just know that I'll be out there with two bottles of tequila to enjoy instead of one. And you'll miss all my drunken confessions."

She missed Meredith. She was too proud to admit it to anyone other than herself, but it was true. Meredith was her person. The only person she could go and freak out to. Normally it was annoying having Meredith as her person, because Meredith was the one who was always freaking out: about Shepherd, about her mom, about Lexie, about her dad, but mostly about Shepherd—and it was the Shepherd talk she couldn't take. Cristina was usually the listener, the voice of reason, and now, the one time that she actually had something worth freaking out about, there was no person to go to.

"Give me that."

Cristina looked up, surprised. Callie was standing over her, holding out her hand for the bottle. So she'd won after all, which was no surprise. All you needed was a little tequila to make you feel better.

* * *

><p>Owen sighed. This wasn't the first night that he hadn't been able to sleep, but it was the first night in a long time that the insomnia had been caused by anything other than the war. It was nice not to be haunted by the horror he had witnessed in Iraq for once.<p>

Cristina. She was all he could think about now. That kiss in the boiler room…he hadn't felt that way about anybody in a long time. He hadn't even thought he was able to feel that way anymore. He would have been happy to stay there forever, kissing her, or even just watching her. If his pager hadn't gone off…who knows what would have happened.

He wondered what she was up to. It was late; she must have gone home by now, unless she'd gone back up to watch the solo surgery. He doubted it though. It was too painful for her.

She might still be in the boiler room. Owen considered going down and looking for her. She'd probably want to be alone. One of the many things he'd learned about Cristina Yang in his short time knowing her was that she wasn't the most social person. The only person she confided in was Meredith, and they weren't speaking to each other anymore.

Not wanting to barge in on her space, but not wanting to stay in the on-call room, since sleep was obviously going to evade him, Owen got up. He may as well go down. If she was still there, he'd leave. She'd never even know he'd been by. And if not, then he'd be able to stay down there. Maybe it would help clear his head.

He'd barely made it halfway down the hallway before changing his mind. It was late. Cristina had definitely gone home by now, and so should he.

It didn't take long to change out of his scrubs. There was no one in the attendings' lounge; most of them were either at home or on duty right now. Not that he talked much to the others anyways. He didn't really like Sloan, and he didn't know any of the others. Shepherd was all right, but he and Owen were rarely in the lounge at the same time. Owen didn't mind, though. He wasn't a terribly social person. It was so much harder to hold a conversation since coming back from Iraq. It seemed like he just never knew what to say anymore.

Waiting for the elevator took forever. The elevators at Seattle Grace, he'd learned, were not only notoriously slow, but were also one of the hottest hook-up spots in the hospital, bested only by the on-call rooms. It was yet another reminder about how personal everything was at this hospital, and that—even though he'd sworn not to—Owen was no better at keeping his personal and professional life separate than any of the other doctors here.

The elevator door opened, and Owen was surprised to see Derek Shepherd leaning against the back railing. He looked tired, and burdened; almost like a normal person, in regular, ordinary clothes. It was strange seeing him without his scrubs. Somehow, he looked less god-like and more human.

"Dr Hunt."

"Dr Shepherd."

The elevator began to descend in silence. For once, Owen wished the elevators weren't so slow; it was so awkward standing here with Shepherd saying nothing.

"Do you want to have a drink?"

Owen blinked, surprised. "Where's Meredith?"

Shepherd sighed. "Watching the solo surgery. I was going to go home, but there'll be no one there. You?"

"Well I was going home," Owen began,

"Don't worry about it." Shepherd smiled weakly.

"No I—a drink would be nice." Maybe it wouldn't hurt to have some friends around here.

* * *

><p>"I used to be good at relationships." Callie took a long swig from the bottle. Both of them had been drinking for a while now—it turned out there was a third bottle of tequila in the cupboard that they'd both forgotten about—and the drunken confessions were about to begin. "I had boyfriends. I was hot. I was rich. People wanted to date me. And then I met George. And he was cute and nice and funny and we got along really well. And then I slept with Mark—after I broke up with George—to try and get over him, which didn't work. Not that the sex wasn't great. It was. It was really mind-blowing. But it wasn't the same, you know? And then he wouldn't talk to me 'cause I "cheated" on him, and then his dad died, and he asked me to marry him. Which was what I'd always wanted. I mean I thought he was the one. And then he slept with Izzie and we got divorced and I was humiliated. In front of the whole hospital." She paused and took another long drink. "And then there was Erica. And she was hot. And nice and funny and she understood me. I wasn't so sure about the whole lesbian thing—I'm still not sure about the whole lesbian thing—but she wasn't either. And the sex was great. So great. Like better than Mark, and Mark's pretty amazing. And then she left without even saying good-bye. The whole hospital didn't know about that one, but, somehow, it was more painful. She was a friend too, you know? With George, it was like losing a lover, but with Erica, I lost a friend too." She shook her head. "I should just swear off relationships entirely. Take a vow of celibacy."<p>

Cristina snorted. "Don't do that. Meredith took a vow of celibacy once, and she ended up screwing McDreamy and losing her panties."

Callie laughed, a short quick burst. "Which Addison found. In Derek's tux. And posted on the board."

The two of them burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.

"So no vow of celibacy," Callie gasped, trying desperately not to laugh.

Cristina shook her head, still laughing. "Believe me, celibacy sucks. I haven't had sex in…a long time."

"You should talk to Mark," Callie suggested. "He's _really_ good with sex."

"McSteamy?" That was enough to send Cristina into a fresh fit of laughter. "He tried hitting on me the other day. For the whole day. And I didn't even notice."

Callie choked on a mouthful of tequila. "Mark was _flirting_ with _you_? I'm sorry, but you are so not his type."

"You were the one who was suggesting I should talk to him," Cristina reminded her.

"Well yeah, because I mean maybe if he was desperate, he'd feel sorry for you, but there's no way he would be flirting with you. At least not of his own accord." Callie shook her head, chortling.

"Yeah well he's lucky I'm not interested." Alcohol gave Cristina even more confidence. "He couldn't handle me." Nobody seemed able to handle her. Not Burke; not Sloan; not Karev; certainly not Shepherd. Or O'Malley. Just imagining Bambi trying to handle her in the bedroom made Cristina burst out laughing again.

"Owen." The word floated off her tongue before she could stop it.

"Mmm, Owen. That's a nice name." Callie was beyond wasted now.

"Owen could handle me." Cristina said it almost to herself more than anyone else, since Callie obviously wasn't listening to much of anything that was being said anymore. This was the only drawback to drinking with Callie. She told great drunken stories, but after a while, she stopped paying attention to anything.

It was true, the thing about Owen. He was so intense that he could definitely handle her. In fact, he was exactly what someone like her needed. He understood the need to be professional, unlike all those sentimental wimps who called themselves surgeons. Most of them didn't even have what it took to be a surgeon. But her and Owen…what a team they would make.

It was a shame she wanted to be a cardio god.

* * *

><p>Joe's wasn't as crowded as it had been in past nights that Owen had been here. There were still some seats left at the bar, and the highlights from the Sea Hawks game were playing on the TV.<p>

"The usual." It was obvious that Shepherd came here often enough that Joe had his order memorized. Which, in hindsight, was hardly surprising: most of the staff at Seattle Grace frequented the Emerald City bar on a regular basis. Even Owen, who had only been coming here for about a month or so, already knew the usual orders of most of the surgical staff. Shepherd drank scotch, unless it was a special occasion; Sloan tended to go for a beer, and the occasional whiskey if he was drinking with Shepherd; Torres liked the fancy cocktails; Karev and Stevens both drank beer; Meredith liked anything with tequila; Cristina liked the strong stuff.

"I'll have a double scotch, single malt." Somehow, ordering a beer when Shepherd was having a scotch seemed inadequate. Besides, Owen liked scotch.

Shepherd seemed somewhat surprised by Owen's order, but he said nothing. In fact, the two of them sat in silence for a while, listening to the chatter of the other patrons. Owen wanted to say something to break the silence, but starting conversations had never been his forte. There were a lot of normal topics that were off-limits for him now that he'd been to Iraq and back, and he'd realized that it was better—and safer—just not to say anything.

"The Hawks are having a pretty dismal season," Shepherd remarked, glancing at the television.

_At least Shepherd is talkative,_ Owen thought, relieved that the weight of starting the conversation had fallen on someone other than him. "It's definitely not one of their best years," Owen agreed. "You don't strike me as much of a sports lover, Shepherd."

"Derek."

"What?"

Shepherd smiled. "Call me Derek. And you don't strike me as much of a scotch drinker, Hunt."

"Yeah, well you're not the first one to say that. And it's Owen." He nodded his thanks at Joe—who had just slid his and Derek's drinks across the bar—and took a long sip. The scotch was good; the way it burned down his throat made him think of Cristina, and that burning sensation she inspired deeper inside of him.

"So what do you think of Seattle Grace, Owen?" Now that they had gotten over the initial awkwardness, conversation seemed to flow much easier.

Owen wondered how best to answer this. Seattle Grace was very different from any other hospital that he had worked in. There was no denying that the surgical program was top-notch, but the way that the doctors mingled there personal and professional lives was, well…confusing. Owen had learned more about the doctors at Seattle Grace in his first month than he ever wanted to know. "The surgical program is great." That was the safest response he could think of.

Derek chuckled. "A little too personal for you, Dr Hunt?"

"Noo…it just takes a little getting used to. That's all." He couldn't really say that, yes, it was too personal, because he seemed to be turning into one of them. This whole thing with Cristina—he shouldn't be thinking about a co-worker like that. But the atmosphere at Seattle Grace didn't necessarily encourage professionalism between employees.

Derek took a long sip of his drink. He hadn't even had time to swallow, before Mark Sloan appeared behind him and clapped him on the shoulder, saying, "Hey, Derek!"

Derek almost spit his scotch all over the bar.

Owen tried to keep a straight face. And failed.

"Sorry about that," Sloan said, as Derek coughed heavily, trying not to choke on his drink. "Dr Hunt."

"Dr. Sloan." Owen still couldn't get the image of Sloan flirting with Cristina out of his head. It made him seethe.

"You looking to sit here?" Derek asked, finally, red-faced, but no longer coughing.

"Oh no, I just wanted to say hi. I've got a date." Sloan winked. "See you later." And with that he headed off.

"It takes a lifetime to get used to people like Mark." Derek shook his head in amazement. "He hasn't changed. In all the years I've known him, he hasn't changed."

_I'm not sure a lifetime will be long enough to get used to Mark Sloan,_ Owen thought, but he didn't say anything. Sloan and Derek were best friends, and he thought it would be rude to express his true opinion about Sloan when Derek had been so kind as to invite Owen out for a drink. He tried to think about other safe topics to discuss; the Sea Hawk scores were too far away to be revived now. The TV wasn't even showing them anymore, it had moved on to the latest NHL results. What he really wanted was information about Cristina. From what he had seen, Meredith was the best person to ask, but since he didn't know her very well Derek was the next best thing. Owen wasn't sure how to go about asking it without making seeming too obvious. His personal life was personal, and he wasn't sure he felt comfortable sharing it with Derek Shepherd. Yet.

"So, uh, how long have you been with Meredith?" Owen thought it was sad that he couldn't think of anything better to talk about.

If Derek was surprised, he didn't show it. In fact, he seemed almost as if he had been expecting it. "We've been on-and-off for a while." He paused; Owen wasn't the only one who seemed slightly uncomfortable spilling his personal life to a stranger. "What about you? Are you married? Got a girlfriend?"

"No." Owen wasn't going to think about Cristina. Or Beth. Neither of those roads were ones that were advisable to take after having had a couple of scotches.

There was an awkward silence, which Owen—as much as he wanted to—didn't seem able to fill. There was really only one thing that he wanted to discuss: Cristina. He barely knew her, and here he was having drinks with someone who'd been working with her for four years.

"So uh, what do you make of Dr Yang?" He tried to come off casual, indifferent.

"Yang?" Derek took a long sip. "She's tough. Competitive. Hard worker. Very blunt. She's not the easiest to get along with."

"Oh."

"Why do you ask?" Derek seemed genuinely curious.

"Oh, well, uh, I'm just trying to get to know the residents a little better." Owen took a hasty sip of his drink. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all.

"Oh, well, in that case, allow me to enlighten you." Derek turned more to face Owen, almost as if he was settling in. "Meredith is hard-working, talented, smart. She's going to be an excellent surgeon. Stevens is very friendly; she's good with the patients, but sometimes she gets too personal. Karev is rude and blunt, but he's a good guy at heart; he knows what he's doing. George is probably the hardest working of them all; he's competent, quick, happy to help, but he's not as competitive as the others are. He had to repeat the beginning of his intern year, so he's just getting used to being a resident."

"Good to know." Owen glanced at his now empty glass. He'd had two scotches and it was beginning to get late; he should probably leave now. The solo surgery would probably be over by now too, and Dr Grey would be wondering where Derek was. "I should probably go," he began, getting up and gathering his coat.

Derek glanced at his watch. "Yeah. With any luck, I can catch Meredith on her way home."

There was an awkward pause, as both men pulled on their coats, no longer sure of what to say to each other.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow, I guess," Derek said eventually.

"Yeah."

Owen watched as Derek threaded his way through the bar and out into the night. He was going to go home to a house full of people, to a warm bed, and a girlfriend to share it with, while Owen was going home to a dark and cold apartment, filled with sleepless nights and longing.

Owen glanced at the door, torn. He really should go home, lonely and unfriendly as it was. But the prospect of another lonely night after what he had experienced this evening with Cristina was too depressing. He needed to feel something other than loneliness or desire.

Sighing, Owen sat down again. "Actually, Joe, I think I'll have another one."

Because, the truth was, if he had to choose between loneliness and desire, or nothing, he'd choose nothing.


	2. Whatever Gets You Through The Day

**A/N: For everybody who got an alert, sorry about that. I didn't update anything yet, but I noticed a few typos I had to fix. I am working on the next chapter though, and I will have it up as soon as I can. I'm looking forward to discovering where this is going to go as much as you are!**

Someone was performing a tap dance on Cristina's head. Whoever it was was really good: they were covering her head without missing a single spot.

There was something underneath her back; something was poking. Slowly, Cristina reached under and grabbed the offending thing out from under her. It was a pillow—one of the squishy, corduroy upholstered ones that went with the couch they'd bought a couple weeks ago. But what was it doing here? Last time she'd checked, the cushions lived on the sofa, not in her bed.

Cristina heaved herself into a sitting position, and froze. She was sitting on the living room floor. _What was she doing on the floor?_

She groaned as she spotted the bottle of tequila lying overturned on the coffee table and the events of last night came flooding back. There had been drinking, lots of it, and Callie had…done something. Or said something. Cristina couldn't remember what it was anymore.

The silence in the apartment told Cristina one of two things: Callie was passed out, or Callie was gone. It was most likely that Callie was still passed out somewhere in the apartment—based on where she had woken up, Cristina wasn't so sure that Callie would have made it to her bed—but, depending on what time it was, there was a small chance that she was at work.

The clock on the microwave read 7:15. Shit. In addition to being supremely hung-over, she was already late for work.

The note on the fridge solved the question of Callie's whereabouts: _Gone to work. Early surgery. Advil on the bathroom sink. Coffee in the pot. Take the leftover casserole if you want it. C. _Had Callie been there, Cristina could have kissed her.

Twenty minutes later, showered, drugged, and bearing a strong mug of coffee, Cristina stumbled into the residents' lounge. Mercifully, it was empty, allowing Cristina a few more moments of silence to pray the headache would vanish. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror before heading out, Cristina shuddered. She was a mess. Her hair—which was normally wild and untameably curly—was a disaster, her face was pale and drawn, and it looked like she hadn't slept in a week. _Exactly the kind of image I want to project_, Cristina thought angrily. _The interns are going to love this_.

There was nothing to be done about her face. The hair…well it didn't look so bad when it was put up. Maybe Shepherd still had some of those eye drops that he used after long nights with Meredith…It wouldn't do anything about the hangover, but the Advil had pretty much taken care of that. At least, it had brought the pain down to a more manageable level. And the coffee would help. Hopefully.

Taking a deep breath, Cristina opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. The hospital was busy this morning; it seemed like everyone was moving a million miles an hour and Cristina was standing still.

"Yang!"

Cristina jumped out of her skin. Derek Shepherd was striding down the hall towards her. He looked surprised to see her getting out so late, and as he got closer, the surprise changed to amusement. Shit. Her hangover was more obvious than she'd thought.

"What, Shepherd?" Cristina tried to make herself as tough as possible. The last thing she wanted was someone like Derek Shepherd laughing at her hangover. It wasn't like he never got drunk or came to work hung-over. In fact, she could distinctly remember several occasions where Shepherd had shown up at the hospital with much less sleep than was recommended. Mind you, most of the time it was because he and Meredith had been at it all night and not because he was hung-over…but she was sure it happened.

"You're late," Derek chuckled. "Aren't you the one who's here at four-thirty every morning trying to steal everyone's surgeries?"

"Shut up." Cristina didn't want anyone making fun of her, especially not Derek Shepherd. "I overslept, okay?"

Derek smiled, that infuriatingly amused smile. "Fine. I've got a craniotomy in an hour. You in?"

Cristina wanted to say no. She wanted to be all tough and I-hate-Derek-Shepherd. She wanted to say that, even though they weren't allowed to specialize until 5th year, she was still a cardio god and didn't need his stupid craniotomy, but after the morning she had had, she really needed a surgery, and an excuse to avoid Owen. Craniotomies took hours. By the time she'd be done, lunch would be over, and the hangover would probably be gone. So when she did see Owen, she'd be able to talk to him like a regular, sane person. She'd be able to observe and gage his reaction to what she said and did. If he seemed interested, well maybe something would happen. If not…well there wouldn't be any more make-outs in the boiler room.

"Yang?" Cristina realized that Derek was waiting for her to respond.

"I'm in," she said hastily, hoping—praying—that the day was going to get better from here, because frankly, she was going to need it.

* * *

><p>There were many mornings lately where Owen woke up thanking his lucky stars that he wasn't they type who got hung-over. This morning had been no exception. He'd stayed at Joe's way later than he should have, and had definitely drunk more than he should have. Which wasn't abnormal these days. Drinking banished the dreams; the visions of the war; the screaming. And the fact that there was no hangover made the next morning so much easier.<p>

Owen roamed the halls, half-hoping to run into Cristina. There hadn't been any traumas rolling into the bay yet, and the first-year resident on his service had yet to be assigned or had yet to show up. So, to kill time, he wandered.

His reason, should anyone ask, was that he was trying to better acquaint himself with the hospital. Which was bullshit because he'd been here a month. He'd seen as much of the hospital as he needed to. According to Cristina, all there was in this hospital was the OR, the ER, the Skills Lab, and the cafeteria anyways, all of which he'd seen. There were other parts of the hospital that were important: the Chief's office; the surgical floor; the on-call rooms…all of which he'd seen as well. The real reason he was walking was in hopes of running into Cristina. After last night, he needed to talk to her.

"Dr Hunt!"

Owen turned. Meredith Grey was running down the hall, waving her hand as if trying to flag him down. He stopped, waiting politely until she caught up with him.

"Dr Bailey told me to come and see you. I'm on the trauma service this week."

Meredith on trauma? This was going to be interesting. Had she not been fighting with Cristina, he would have been able to grill her and find out anything and everything about Cristina, but since they weren't speaking, he probably wouldn't get anything out of her today. "I thought you would be with Dr Shepherd," he said casually.

Meredith shook her head. "Since the Chief's put that whole 'no favouritism' rule into effect, I'm spending a lot less time on neuro. Besides, Cristina's with him this week."

Owen bit back a smile. Maybe there was a way to get information about Cristina after all.

He didn't have time to ask any more questions before his pager went off. "911 in the pit. Let's move Dr Grey!"

"What have we got?" Owen asked, marching out the ER doors into the crisp, February chill, tying himself into a trauma gown as he went.

"Car accident. Unrestrained passenger went flying into the seat in front of her. Potential head and spinal injuries. It's hard to tell; she's bleeding a lot, but they think there are possible fractures. The driver sustained minor injuries. Ambulance is about 5 minutes out," the ER nurse explained.

Owen nodded brusquely, Cristina already slipping back into the depths of his mind. "Dr Grey, page Torres. And notify Shepherd. He's in surgery right now, but when he can, he should probably come take a look at this."

Meredith nodded, and headed back into the hospital.

The first few snowflakes began to fall as they waited. The ER nurse watched them fall, surprised, and Owen couldn't help but mirror her sentiment. It reminded him of that night when he and Cristina had first met. The thought of her lying on the found, impaled by an icicle still made him chuckle. Even in distress, she still managed to look sexy.

The arrival of the ambulance broke off all further thoughts of Cristina. It had barely pulled to a stop before Owen was moving, ready to receive the latest trauma, the newest challenge. He could reminisce later. Now, there were lives to save.

* * *

><p>As it turned out, Cristina would have probably been in on the craniotomy anyways; she was assigned to neuro this week. This was a mixed blessing: she had less chance to run into Meredith and possibly Owen—she wasn't sure that that was a blessing or a curse—but she had to spend the week with Derek freaking Shepherd, who would, without a doubt, be trying to mend fences between her and Meredith he hadn't mentioned it during the craniotomy, but it was only a matter of time. Shepherd was the chatty type; and of course, he would think that because he and Meredith were living together and that he was their attending, that it was somehow his job to right things between her and Meredith. As if he had never had a fight with a friend over something serious. He hadn't spoken to his best friend for the better part of three years because Mark had slept with Derek's wife. He had no right to be giving her advice on how to fix things with Meredith. Not only because of that thing with Mark, but also because he was her attending. He could give her all the professional advice he wanted, but it wasn't his place to give advice on how she should live her personal life, unless she asked for it. And besides, who said she wanted to mend fences with Meredith anyways?<p>

Owen wasn't the kind of person who would talk about feelings. Owen was professional. He wasn't like all the other doctors: mixing up his personal and professional so that he could no longer tell the two apart. The only time he would intervene was if their personal problems made them incapable of doing their jobs properly, which wasn't going to happen, and if it did, it wasn't going to be Cristina's fault. She knew how to be professional.

Cristina glanced at the long list of preops and postops that Shepherd had given her to check up on. It was four thirty. She'd gone into the OR at nine. For seven hours, she had stood there, observing the brain, applying suction, and listening to Shepherd going on and on about what he was doing, while throwing in the occasional sly jibe at Cristina's state of post-intoxication. Cristina could only take so much brain for one day; these preops and postops were going to kill her. To top it all off, she had to fins the interns before she could go home. Well, maybe not home. No way was she having another drunk night with Callie, though the prospect of spending all day tomorrow with Shepherd discussing Meredith might change her mind.

Even after seven hours of mind-numbing surgery, the headache still prevailed. She'd rushed off to take an Advil as soon as she was done scrubbing out, but the drummer beating her skull had barely lessened, or perhaps all the sly jabs from Shepherd had made it worse.

Regardless, Shepherd was gone now, off to check on Owen's trauma patient. From what Cristina had heard, there'd definitely be surgery involved, which meant that she wouldn't see Meredith, Shepherd, or Owen until tomorrow. The only disappointing one was Owen; though she wasn't sure yet which way they were going. He was so infuriatingly professional that she had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. Now when he was kissing her…well, then it was easy to tell what he was feeling.

Cristina had no idea if their relationship had changed since last night. She hadn't seen Owen all day, and, as far as she knew, he hadn't made any effort to find her.

"Dr Yang?"

Cristina turned. Lexie Grey was standing in front of her, fresh-faced and eager-looking as usual.

"Yes?" Lexie definitely had an assignment that did not involve speaking to Cristina. She wondered what about that assignment that was so difficult that Lexie had to bother her about it.

"Uh…" Lexie looked awkwardly around, as if searching for a lifeline.

"Look, Three, I don't have a ton of time here. If you've got a question, spit it out; otherwise get back to work."

"Well that's the thing," Lexie began. "I'm finished in the pit and they say they don't need me anymore, so I was just wondering if you had anything I could do?"

Cristina was of half a mind to be nice and tell Lexie she could go see if Shepherd needed any help or tell her she could go home early, but there was a huge pile of preops and postops that Cristina didn't want to do. It was the job of an intern to check in on patients and be in charge of them when the attendings were busy, and Lexie was more than capable of handling that, while Cristina hid away and finished her charting. "Here are Dr Shepherd's preop and postop patients." She shoved the binders at Lexie. "Check in on them. If you have any problems, page me or Shepherd." _If there is an emergency, please page Shepherd_._ I don't want to have to deal with it. _

Lexie, somewhat surprised, accepted the charts. "Uh, thank you?" She stood there, as if waiting for Cristina to give her an instruction.

"What are you waiting for, Three? Go!"

Lexie blushed. "Oh. Right. Sorry. On my way, Dr Yang."

Cristina shook her head. Interns. They had no sense of self-discipline.

At least she'd gotten rid of the patients, which meant that there wouldn't be any more brain stuff. Now all she had to do was finish those damn charts—which would easily take a couple of hours—and she'd be free. So if she by any chance happened to run into Owen on her way out…well, her options would be open.

Charting—pain in the ass as it was—was a welcome reprieve for Cristina. It was mindless, which would hopefully allow her aching head a chance to heal. She didn't have to worry about bedside manner or conversation; Lexie was taking care of all of that. All she had to do was put her iPod in and chart.

"Hey, Cristina!"

Izzie's unannounced arrival made Cristina want to scream. Much as she loved Izzie, she was often too much to handle on a good day, let alone today. Cristina hoped that not responding would get the message across.

It didn't. Izzie perched on the edge of the desk, obviously intending to hang around.

"I haven't seen you all day." Her smile was too bright and happy; it made Cristina's eyes hurt.

"Oh, yeah, well, I scrubbed in on Shepherd's craniotomy, so I was in the OR all day," Cristina replied, not looking up from her charts.

Izzie laughed. "You and Shepherd, huh? That must have been fun."

Cristina didn't smile. "It was actually quite interesting."

"Yeah right," Izzie snorted. "Everyone knows you hate Shepherd and neuro. You think anything other than cardio is a waste of time."

"That's not true!" Cristina protested. "Neuro can be quite…fascinating. And I like trauma and general—"

"You mean you like surgery." Izzie shook her head, as if there were something wrong with that.

"So do you." Cristina couldn't believe it. She and Izzie fought over patients regularly.

"Yeah, but for me, it's not an obsession. I like patient care too. It's nice to be able to get to know the people I'm cutting into."

"That's because you're a people person." It was to keep the weariness out of her voice. This was a conversation she and Izzie had all the time. "Now is there any real reason why you came here, or do you just want to chat?" Cristina had work to do; work that she couldn't do with the likes of Izzie Stevens hanging around.

Izzie looked slightly affronted. "Well, I just saw you and hadn't seen you all day, and I've got nothing to do but chart—"

"Well, then go chart. That's what I'm doing."

"Fine," Izzie huffed. "I don't even know why I bothered."

"Neither do I," Cristina muttered as Izzie stormed out.

It was seven o'clock before Cristina was able to get out of there. She'd charted mindlessly for two hours, and now she needed to go somewhere, anywhere that wasn't the hospital. The headache had lessened considerably, but the exhaustion—obviously she and Callie hadn't gotten much sleep last night—was starting to kick in, leaving Cristina feeling awful.

Mercifully, the residents' lounge was empty. Not that she should have been surprised: Meredith was still in surgery, Izzie was charting, Karev was on the peds service—which meant that no one ever saw him—and Cristina never seemed to run into George anymore. Cristina changed quickly and quietly lest anyone come and disturb her peace, gathered her bag, and headed out.

While waiting for the elevator, she considered going home. Callie wouldn't be there; she was in surgery with Owen, and she normally hung out at Joe's after work anyways—that whole drunken thing last night had been more to ease the pain of Cristina's shitty day than Callie's. As nice as an empty apartment would be, Cristina—for once—was not in the mood for her own company. She wanted to see Owen; she didn't have to talk to him, just seeing him would be enough. Ordinarily, she would have just hung around a little longer and watched his surgery, but the thought of watching Owen perform trauma surgery in the same OR that Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd were performing some fancy neurosurgery made her vaguely queasy. Besides, if—by some rare stroke of luck—she did happen to run into Owen, she wasn't sure that she would know what to do. She wasn't really in the mood to talk about what had happened last night, hence the fact that she'd been avoiding him all day. She was secretly dreading their next conversation; what if nothing changed? What if he had forgotten last night completely, and expected them to go on as if nothing had happened between them? She certainly hadn't forgotten what had happened. In fact, just thinking about it caused desire to smoulder in the pit of her stomach.

The elevator doors opened and Cristina stepped inside, marvelling at her luck: the elevator was empty, a rare occurrence at Seattle Grace. Normally, the elevator was the one place you ran into everyone you did and didn't want to see on any given day. To be greeted by an empty elevator when she was hoping for it to be empty was a rare treat. It was also a relief; Cristina didn't have to worry about concealing any of the war that was being waged between her head and her heart. These feelings were dangerous, her head reasoned, the kind of feelings she couldn't succumb to, not after what happened the last time—though her feelings for Burke couldn't hold a candle to what she felt with Owen. Her heart, on the other hand, reasoned that she should let those feelings rip. After all, kissing him had felt so good, and it wasn't like she was getting laid all the time. The only person who had hit on her in the last year was Mark Sloan, the memory of which still made her sick.

Cristina needed to get away, to escape somewhere no one would find her, so that she could get herself straightened out. So that when she came to work tomorrow, there would be no hangover, no inner war between head and heart threatening to tear her to pieces. She needed to be in control again, to find the old Cristina: the hard-core, cutthroat Cristina who would stop at nothing to be number one, regardless of who she had to hurt to get there.

She couldn't go home. Home meant Callie and possibly Owen—after all, he did know where she lived. There had to be one safe haven, a place where she could exist with no one else, where no personal drama and crap from other people's lives would be worming its way into her world.

After, she couldn't believe that she hadn't thought of it right away, but the emotional turmoil and the hangover had left her a little distracted. Once it occurred to her, however, it was as if some of that pain and confusion lifted. It was nice to know that, despite all the crap in her life, there was one thing that certain, one place that was safe. Resolved, Cristina readjusted the strap of her bag and exited the elevator with purpose.

Dermatology was calling.

* * *

><p>Owen was tired. The surgery had only been three hours, but it had been precise and technical, and had left Owen with a newfound respect for neuro and cardiothoracic surgeons who had to face this sort of stuff every time they entered the OR. All he wanted to do now was go home, eat a hot home-cooked meal, and fall asleep, and yet home for him—that tiny, empty apartment downtown—was the last place he wanted to go. He wished there was someone to go home to, and by someone, he meant Cristina. He wondered where she was, if she was still here. Derek had passed some comment in the OR about her being hung-over, at which point Torres had mentioned something about a party last night at their place. He couldn't help but wondering if he had inspired the hangover, or if it was simply the combination of one shitty thing after another that had driven Cristina to drink.<p>

Owen debated going to her apartment. She'd definitely be home by now, but he wasn't sure she would want to talk to him. She may have been avoiding him, which would explain why he hadn't seen her. Granted, she'd been in surgery with Shepherd for most of the day, but from what he knew about Cristina, neurosurgery was her least favourite rotation, and Derek was her least favourite surgeon. Owen was overcome by an overpowering urge to see her, to make sure that she was all right after last night, and after today. A whole day in the OR with Derek Shepherd wasn't going to make her all happy and gooey inside. However, if she were avoiding him, then a surprise visit wasn't going to inspire any warm fuzzies either. With a sigh, he decided against it. He'd just go home.

The jingling in his coat pocket reminded him that there was somewhere else he could go. In the attendings' lounge, Derek had tossed him a set of keys. "They're for my trailer," he'd explained. "You look like you could use a place to escape to."

The trailer was the perfect place to go. In the woods, far away from everyone, he was guaranteed some peace and quiet, and he wouldn't have to worry about overpowering urges to see Cristina getting the best of him; the drive back in to her would be too far. It wouldn't be lonely or unfriendly like his place; it was very lived-in and warm. It was a place where he could think; figure out a game plan for tomorrow; figure out how to control his desire for Cristina. It was incredibly selfish what he was doing; he was damaged goods, and he was fully aware of it. He couldn't let himself do this; it wasn't fair for Cristina. She had no idea what she was getting herself into.

Outside, the snow was falling in a thick, white blanket; more snow than Owen had ever seen fall in Seattle. At this rate, driving back in to work the next morning was going to be hell. Not for the first time, Owen thanked God that he had had the good sense to buy a truck instead of a car. _Still, it's probably not the best idea to be driving out to the woods,_ Owen thought, but the thought of going back to that cold and empty apartment was worse than navigating snowy back roads in the dark.

The drive to Derek's was long, though Owen—mind full of Cristina—barely noticed the time passing. Did she like snow? Had she built snowmen and gone sledding the way Owen had as a child? Was she even from Seattle? He knew the Chief, Meredith, and George all were, and that Derek and Sloan were from New York, but what about Cristina? Now that he thought about it, as much as he knew about her professional life and her personality, Owen knew nothing about her past or her personal life, other than that her dad had died in a car accident when she was nine, that she was best friends with Meredith Grey—despite the fact that they were currently not speaking to each other—and that she lived across the street from the hospital in an apartment she shared with Torres. He didn't know anything about her mother, her childhood; her past boyfriends—if there were any, though he was sure there were; he couldn't be the only man who found her attractive. What did she like to do in her spare time? She was a virtual stranger, and yet, her felt as if he knew her better than he'd known anyone in a long time. She certainly seemed to know and accept him better than anyone else did.

Owen was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't notice the motorcycle parked outside Derek's trailer. It didn't dawn on him to check that if anyone was already there; this was Derek's trailer after all, and Derek lived with Meredith know. He thought the fairy lights strung around the porch awning were a nice touch, and he wondered momentarily if he should do something about the patio furniture on the porch, though he wasn't sure where to put it. The Dermatology sign on the door was just confusing, as was the fact that all the lights were on. In retrospect, all of the latter should have been a big indication that he wasn't alone, but Owen just brushed it off as nothing. Maybe they were motion-sensitive; Derek was a millionaire, after all.

So it wasn't until he unlocked the door and stepped into the warm glow of the trailer that he noticed the other person. At first, he didn't recognize her; curled up on the couch in a bright red Stanford hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, with a glass of red wine, fully absorbed in the reading of a small black journal, wild black curls falling free around her face, she didn't look like herself. It wasn't until she looked at the sound of the door closing behind him that he knew her, and the pit dropped out of his stomach. She'd seen him; there was no backing out now. Not knowing what else to do, Owen spoke.

"Cristina."


	3. Stuck In The Middle With You

Seeing Owen walk into the trailer was probably one of the weirdest moments of Cristina's life. Once she got over the initial shock of him standing there in front of her, however, she was angry. The trailer was _her_ safe haven, her dermatology, and the one time she came out here to get away from it all, to sort herself out, the cause of all her turmoil decided to invade.

"What are you doing here?" Cristina couldn't have sounded more hostile if she tried. This was not at all how she had envisioned her next conversation with Owen to be like, and—judging by the look on his face—neither had he. In fact, he seemed shocked by her unfriendly reaction, but, honestly, what had he expected. He'd ambushed her. She wasn't the kind of person who liked surprises.

Owen scrambled to think of something to say, feeling more and more put on the spot with every passing second. This was not at all what he had expected. "I—Derek gave me his keys." Owen didn't want to offer any more of an explanation than that; the bit about his apartment being all dark and lonely made him seem weaker, and that was the last thing he wanted to appear in the eyes of Cristina Yang.

His answer took Cristina by surprise. She hadn't though that Owen and Shepherd would be friends, much less first-name-basis friends. Even more surprising that Shepherd would let him stay here. Didn't he have his own place to go to?

"How did you get here?"

Had it been anyone other than Owen, Cristina would have laughed. Was he really that stupid? Had he not seen her bike outside? Even if he hadn't, it was obvious that she would have driven. It wasn't like she could walk. "I took my bike."

"You rode your _bicycle_?" Owen repeated, astonished.

"Motorcycle," Cristina amended impatiently. Did he not know any of the colloquial expressions? Of course she hadn't taken her bicycle. She didn't even own a bicycle.

"Still," Owen shook his head, exasperated. "It's snowing outside, Cristina. It's been snowing since eleven thirty this morning. They don't plough out this way very often."

"And?" she challenged. "It's not like I have another vehicle or something."

"Well, you didn't have to come out here," Owen muttered. "How _did_ you get out here? How would your bike work in this weather?"

Cristina decided not to point out that Owen had just referred to her motorcycle as a bike. "I drove in behind the snowplough." She turned back to her journal. It was easier to think when she wasn't looking at him. The she wanted was a replay of last night running through her head while she was confined in a trailer with Owen Hunt.

It was funny, Cristina mused to herself. She had wanted so badly to see Owen, to touch him, to know that what had happened last night was real and not just a figment of her imagination, and now, now that he was here, all she wanted was for him to leave. Owen, however, didn't seem to get the message; he was peeling off his coat and hanging it up next to Cristina's. She got a flash of them in twenty years: Owen coming home after a long day, Cristina up and waiting for him. It was nice, but it was the future. This was now.

"What are you doing?"

Owen turned; Cristina's question had caught him off-guard. Was it so hard to see what he was doing? She didn't expect him to keep his coat on all night, did she? "What do you mean?" he asked warily.

"Aren't you going?" Here was the Cristina Derek had described: blunt, to the point, and yet, Owen was still rendered momentarily speechless. This was a fairly common occurrence when he was in the presence of Cristina, but this speechlessness wasn't caused by his tongue being tied or his brain being foggy, but by his shock at the question. She couldn't really have said that, or at least, she couldn't have meant it. "So you expect me to just hightail it home not that you're here?" he managed finally.

She didn't reply, just looked at him, as if she couldn't understand why he hadn't already left. This reaction, this selfishness, made Owen angry. "I'm not going to drive all the way back to the city in this weather just because you happened to be here first." He couldn't believe this. Her obvious rejection stung. Had last night meant nothing? Was he the only one standing there, tormented by what he felt? It wasn't like he'd come here looking for her or something. She was the last person he wanted to see right now. How was he supposed to figure out how to deal with his feelings when she was there the whole time?

Cristina sighed loudly. Her displeasure couldn't be more obvious. "Well, there's only one bed," she said pointedly.

Owen swallowed, trying not to think about all the things that bed could be. He needed to be detached. That was what was best for Cristina. It would hurt, but it needed to be done. "It's fine," he said hastily. "I'll sleep out here." He gestured lamely to the tiny sofa Cristina was sitting on.

"You're going to sleep _there_?" Cristina's eyes widened and she looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh.

Owen had to admit it was amusing, so much so that he couldn't be angry with Cristina for mocking him. The couch was tiny, and the likelihood of Owen being able to fit all of himself onto that thing was, unlikely. Trying to picture himself attempting to fit himself onto that tiny thing was laughable. "Yeah." He chuckled sheepishly. It was contagious: before long, both of them were laughing. It felt good to be able to laugh about something with Cristina, even if he was the object of amusement.

"But seriously," Cristina said, her laughter abruptly ending. "Where are you going to sleep?" She didn't trust herself to share a bed with Owen, but he sure as hell was not going to fit on that dinky little couch.

"Don't worry about me," Owen replied hastily. "I've got some paperwork to do. I won't be sleeping for a while yet."

Cristina raised her eyebrows; his paperwork excuse wasn't very believable. _What kind of surgeon brings paperwork home with them?_ she wondered. "Well, I'm going to bed." She closed Ellis' journal and got up off the couch. The sooner she went to bed, the sooner morning would come, and the sooner this would all be over.

"Goodnight," Owen said quietly, settling himself in the space she had been occupying on the couch.

"Goodnight Owen." It came out like a sigh, as if she was finally resigning herself to the fact that he wasn't going anywhere.

It was somewhat reassuring, she admitted to herself as she drifted off to sleep, knowing that she wasn't alone tonight, that if some bear or something got in here, there would be someone to protect her.

* * *

><p>Owen watched Cristina sleep. He didn't mean to, but there wasn't much else to do, and besides—creepy as it was—it was fascinating. Sleeping Cristina was so different from Awake Cristina. That, and sleep was not a luxury that Owen often enjoyed. So here he sat at 0-dark-hundred with nothing to do but watch her sleep.<p>

She was incredibly peaceful. It was relaxing to watch. Here was someone Owen would be happy waking up to every morning for the rest of his life. Here was someone who got him, who didn't see the war hero every time she looked at him. He wasn't anything to her other than Owen. He wasn't a soldier or a brilliant trauma surgeon; he was just a guy. He didn't have to worry about disappointing her because she expected nothing from him. She didn't know him She didn't know the person he used to be, the person he was before Iraq. She didn't have any expectations of how he would be when he got back from the war, because she didn't know the Owen who had gone to Iraq that first time. Cristina was a fresh start, and that was exactly what he needed. A clean slate.

Owen sighed, and shifted his weight. He was tired. Just because he didn't sleep didn't mean he didn't feel tired. Normally, he would watch TV or drink to a point where he could sleep without the dreams, without the screaming, but he couldn't do that tonight. He was terrified of sleeping, for fear of having a nightmare and waking Cristina. He didn't want her to know about this. This wasn't her burden to bear. But he was so tired. His eyelids felt as though they each weighed a hundred pounds. His eyes burned and ached; his limbs felt like lead. It had been a long day.

There was no way he was going to be able to sleep on this couch. It was tiny, and besides, there were no extra blankets, so he'd freeze. He'd already had to put his coat back on. Derek's trailer didn't come with heating, or at least not enough to be effective in a storm like this. It was still snowing, harder now than it had been before. It seemed highly unlikely that they'd be going to work tomorrow.

Owen glanced back towards the bed. Cristina was shaking, possibly from the cold. She was still fast asleep, but she was beginning to shiver more and more violently. Owen felt an overpowering desire to help her, to hold her and keep her warm, but resisted, for fear of waking her. She'd made it pretty clear she didn't want him sharing a bed with her. At least not yet.

"Owen!" Her sudden cry pierced the silence blanketing the trailer. She was still sleeping—or at least her eyes were still closed—but there was no denying that that could technically be considered as an invitation. As long as he was up before she was—which shouldn't be a problem, Owen rose with the sun—and then she'd never know.

"Owen!" she cried again, her pitch becoming more desperate and pleading. "Owen!"

He would have to be heartless to ignore a plea like that. She was obviously dreaming—probably having a nightmare, and Owen knew a thing or two about those. They were never pleasant, and it was worse if you were waking up after one all alone. Ignoring the practical voice of reason screaming all the what-ifs and the worst-case scenarios, Owen peeled off his jacket, crossed the trailer, and climbed into bed with Cristina.

"Shhh," he whispered consolingly, wrapping his arms around her shaking figure. "I'm here. It's OK, I'm here."

She rolled over to face him, and for a moment, he was afraid she'd woken up, but she just burrowed her face in his chest.

Owen tried hard to keep his eyes open, but the bed was so warm and comfortable that he couldn't keep sleep away. _Hopefully_, he thought, as his eyes finally closed, _tonight will be a good night._

* * *

><p>The smell of fresh coffee jerked Cristina awake. She blinked, relishing in the joy of waking up on her own time without the blaring of the alarm, and the warm feeling that accompanied the thought of giving the coffee already made. Callie must have a late start this morning. That was when it dawned on her: it was a work morning. The alarm should have gone off. And Callie never made coffee; she normally just went straight to work and got something from the cafeteria.<p>

Cristina sat bolt upright, shock flooding her veins, as she realized that she wasn't even in her own bed. It took her a moment to realize where she was (the trailer) and what had happened last night. Thankfully she did, otherwise she would have died of fright when she saw Owen in the kitchenette, making coffee.

"Morning," he said, smiling, as he noticed she was awake. He acted as if this was perfectly normal, as if they did this every day.

Cristina was too flummoxed to even say good morning in reply. The trailer was farther away from the hospital than either of their apartments; was he not worried about being late for work? _Oh God, did he have the day off?_

"Don't you have work?" The comment came out a little bit more rudely than intended, but at this point, the prospect of missing work was too terrifying for Cristina to bother caring about politeness. She'd rather spend the whole day listening to Shepherd playing therapist to her and Meredith than consciously stay home from work. She lived and breathed surgery. The hospital was her home.

"It's still snowing," Owen replied, barely looking up from the cupboards he was rummaging in. "I called the hospital to say we aren't coming today. The Chief said not to worry; he's got it covered. Eggs?" he asked conversationally, having finally found what he was looking for: the frying pan.

"You did _what_?" Cristina spluttered. He'd called in sick? She never called in sick, not even when she was actually sick. So what if it was snowing? Sure, it didn't normally snow very much in Seattle, but that didn't mean that they couldn't get in to work. It was just a little snow.

"Have you looked outside?" Owen turned to look at her for the first time this morning, as if she were crazy. "We're pretty much buried under snow, Cristina. There's no way we'd make it to the main road, let alone all the way into the city."

"But—" Cristina began, trying desperately to make him understand.

"There aren't going to be many surgeries today, Cristina." It was as if Owen could read her mind. "People have been told to stay off the roads, and a lot of the elective surgeries will probably be pushed back, since the hospital's going to be short-staffed."

"You still shouldn't have made that decision on my behalf," Cristina snapped in frustration. Who had died and made him Chief? "I'm going in."

Owen chuckled. His amusement at her predicament was even more infuriating than his decision to call in sick for her. "How? Your bike's not going to work in this weather and I am sure as hell not lending you my truck."

"Who said I wanted your truck?" Cristina retorted. She'd never driven a truck before, and wasn't willing to try it in this weather. Besides, she wasn't going to borrow anything of Owen's. The last thing se wanted was being indebted to him.

"Well I don't see any other way for you to get to the hospital." Owen glanced out the window. "Unless you plan on walking, but at this rate, you wouldn't get there until tomorrow anyways."

Unwillingly, Cristina glanced outside. The world outside the trailer was unrecognizable. Everything was blanketed in white, as far as the eye could see, and there was still more snow falling. It looked like one of those sappy Christmas postcards. Cristina halfheartedly wished that Meredith were here so that they could laugh about the cheesiness of it together.

"Do you want any eggs?" Owen repeated, tearing Cristina away from the winter wonderland outside.

"Fine," she grumbled. As much as she hated to admit it, Owen was right. There was just no way she was going in to work in this weather. Her motorcycle was completely buried; she could barely see the handlebars. Even if she knew how to drive a truck, navigating in this weather would be treacherous. It looked like she was going to be stuck here in the trailer with Owen for another day. Or at least until the snowploughs could get to them.

"How do you like them?" Owen asked tentatively, head in the fridge. For some reason, this felt like a highly personal question, the kind you would ask when you were in a relationship. He sent a silent prayer to God that there were eggs in the tiny refrigerator and that they weren't frozen, given how cold it had been last night.

"Uh, scrambled," Cristina said distractedly from the bedroom.

_Scrambled. Interesting choice_, Owen thought to himself. He would not have pegged Cristina for a scrambled eggs girl. From what he'd seen of her and her work, she was a perfectionist. She liked everything neat and perfectly done; she hated nothing more than a simple task or a sloppy job. He'd have imagined her as more of a fried or easy over kind of girl. Scrambled eggs seemed to be contrary to everything Cristina stood for.

Today was going to be interesting; there was no denying that. He was stuck in a trailer in the middle of nowhere with Cristina Yang, the one person he should probably never be alone with. Hopefully, she wouldn't be so hostile all day, but if she were, at least he'd have an excuse to keep his distance, which would probably be best for everyone.

As he prepared the eggs, Owen wondered what the others were doing. Was Derek at work, or had he and Meredith stayed home for the day? Was Meredith's house considered too far for them to make the drive safely into the hospital or had they stayed over at the hospital last night? Now that he thought about it, Owen didn't even know where Meredith lived. He could probably ask Cristina, but he wasn't sure if she'd answer him. She and Meredith weren't speaking right now. Why, Owen had no idea, and he wasn't going to ask. Owen debated calling Derek after breakfast to find out what was going on at the hospital and find out some more about the trailer: heating and food and stuff, though he wasn't even sure Derek would know these things; this freak storm was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

The eggs were done. Owen lifted them onto plates, marveling at the quality dishes Derek kept in his trailer. He poured two mugs of coffee, surprised that Cristina hadn't already gotten herself one—he thought she was a coffee fiend—and set them both on the table along with the plates. "Breakfast!"

"Looks good." Cristina ambled out of the bedroom and sat down. Owen stood there and watched her for a moment before sitting down, admiring the grace with which she wrapped her hands around the coffee cup, and the way her face relaxed as if she were trying to absorb all the coffee's heat.

"What?" Apparently, Owen's interest in her hadn't gone unnoticed.

"Nothing," he said hastily, scrambling for something to say other than_ I was just entranced by your beauty_. "You just don't strike me as a scrambled eggs type of person, that's all."

Cristina raised her eyebrows. "Oh? Well what's your definition of a scrambled eggs person then?"

Owen paused uncomfortably. He felt like he was in third grade again, having gotten up in front of the class to present his speech, and forgotten it as soon as the class was silent. "Well, they're more…disorganized. Messy, you know?"

Cristina laughed. "You think I'm neat? You haven't seen my apartment."

"True," Owen admitted, a little embarrassed. It was nice to be learning some new things about Cristina.

"Mind you, my apartment can seem deceptively neat at first," she continued. "Callie is a neat freak. But my room is a disaster." Obviously hungry, she shoveled a forkful of egg into her mouth. "I bet you're a neat freak, what with all that army training and stuff."

In any other situation, there would have been some kind of awkward pause as the speaker realized that they had crossed into forbidden territory, but Owen had already learned that Cristina didn't really care about that sort of thing. It was nice actually, not having everybody making a big deal about his being in the army. He didn't like to talk about Iraq, but that didn't everyone had to avoid talking about his being in the military completely. "I am pretty neat," Owen admitted, thinking about his sparse, empty apartment. "But I wasn't always that way."

"Well, neat or not, you can cook. These eggs are great," Cristina mumbled, mouth still full.

Owen laughed. "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full?" he teased.

"My mother?" Cristina snorted. "Hah! Don't even get me started on my mother."

This was a surprise to Owen. Cristina seemed like the kind of girl any parent would be proud to have. She was smart; hard working; disciplined. Sure, she was also, blunt, occasionally insensitive, and highly competitive, but she wasn't a bad person. Nobody was perfect. Being nicer, being more empathetic, these were things Cristina needed to improve on. For Owen, it was accepting other people's opinions, letting people in instead of pushing them away, and—eventually—talking about Iraq. Cristina was an extraordinarily gifted surgeon and her mother should be celebrating her accomplishments. If she were his daughter, not only would Owen would be extremely proud of her, but he would also let her know at every opportunity. "You and your mother don't get along?"

_Was that not obvious?_ Cristina wondered to herself. "That's the understatement of the century." She could see that he didn't understand how she and her couldn't get along. She got it. Very few people understood what kind of daughter could hate her mother. Meredith was one of the few people who got it; Owen, obviously, was not. "She gave up on me a long time ago." Seeing the look of surprise on Owen's face, Cristina continued, "Once my mother realized that I was going to go off to some top notch school or two and become a surgeon and spend every waking hour cutting people open somewhere very far away instead of giving her a big, white wedding and grandchildren and gossip with her about interior design and knitting patterns once a week over lattes at some posh Beverly Hills coffee shop, she wrote me off as a lost cause. One that she tries to fix on the rare occasion that she can actually be bothered to fly down to see me. Not that I'm complaining," Cristina added hastily. "If I had my way, I'd never hear from her again."

_Beverly Hills?_ Owen had had no idea that Cristina was a California girl, or that she was rich. At least, it had been implied that her mother was rich. He wasn't sure what to say. Should he say that he was glad she had chosen to move far away from home, because otherwise they never would have met? No, that wouldn't work. That wasn't the kind of thing you said to someone like Cristina. Deep down inside, he was selfishly glad that Cristina never spoke to her mother. Beverly Hills was way out of his league.

"I would be proud of you."

"What?" Cristina was shocked by Owen's words. He'd spoken quietly, and part of Cristina hoped that —despite her excellent hearing—she had misheard what Owen said. She wasn't ready for this yet. They weren't in a relationship, and she didn't know if they were ever going to be. She didn't even know what it was that she felt every time she was around him.

Owen was equally surprised by the words that had come out of his mouth. They were true, but they weren't the kind of thing he had meant to say aloud. Not yet, at least. Not until they knew each other better, until they had established where it was this relationship was going. Now that he had uttered them, however, he had no choice. If he was going down, he may as well go down fighting. "If you were my daughter, I'd be proud of you, and your mother should be too." Cristina blinked, surprised by his comment, but said nothing. Courage bolstered, Owen continued. "She should be proud of you no matter what you choose to do. Even if it's not what she envisioned you doing. Her job as a parent is to support you in whatever you decide to do or be, not try and make you into the child she always wanted."

There was an awkward silence following that speech. Owen felt terribly exposed; he had just gotten very personal, and he wasn't sure that he and Cristina were at the up-close-and-personal stage yet. He wasn't sure where they were right now.

"Are you going to eat those?" Cristina asked, gesturing towards his mostly untouched plate of eggs. She couldn't take another moment of silence, of Owen's intense blue eyes staring right through her, as if seeing into the deepest part of her soul. He had surprised her. She had him pegged as the type who wouldn't understand the complex, painful relationship between her and her mother, but he had supported her instead of encouraging her to try and make amends. He seemed to think her mother was the one at fault here.

Owen glanced down at the plate, as if he had forgotten it was there. "Oh, uh, yeah. I suppose so." He was a hearty believer in breakfast, especially on a day like today.

"What? You don't like eggs? Or are they too disorganized for you?" Cristina teased.

Owen smiled. "Okay, so maybe the scrambled egg theory was way off," he admitted reluctantly.

Cristina laughed, scraping the last bits of egg onto her fork. "It really was."

Owen sighed and pushed the eggs around on his plate. They were cold, as was his coffee, which had also sat untouched the whole time they had been sitting down. He had been too preoccupied with Cristina to even think about eating breakfast. Carefully—it was a tight fit getting in and out of the tiny furniture—Owen eased himself off the bench and carried the plate and mug back over to the stove.

Cristina smirked.

"What?" Owen couldn't understand what could be so amusing.

"Well I would have though that a hard-core army guy like you would be used to eating his breakfast cold," she replied innocently.

"I can eat a cold breakfast," Owen protested. "But after so many days of eating cold breakfasts, it's nice to be able to eat it warm."

"Well you had plenty of opportunity to eat it warm. I ate mine while it was still warm." She got up from the table as well and carried her empty dishes over to the sink.

There was nothing Owen could say to that. He turned back towards the stove, when Cristina's words rang in his head. _A hard-core army guy like you_. Cristina thought he was hard-core? In that case, he wasn't going to disappoint.

"Do you want another cup of coffee?" Cristina offered, as she refilled her mug.

Owen shook his head, mouth full of eggs. They weren't actually that bad, still lukewarm. "I prefer my coffee cold." He winked.

Cristina rolled her eyes. "Whatever, GI-Joe. I'm off to have a shower."

Owen raised his eyebrows. "With a full cup of coffee?"

Now it was her turn to wink. "I like my coffee _steamy_."

Owen smiled. Maybe being stuck in a trailer with Cristina wasn't going to be so bad after all.

**A/N: Sorry it took so long to update! I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who's reviewed this story; the feedback definitely helps me write faster and better. Also, if you have any suggestions about where you want the story to go, let me know, because ideas always help me to make my stories better too! **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: So sorry that it's taken me so long to update! I've been super busy with school, and I was trying to finish my other story so I wouldn't have so many on the go. This chapter isn't the greatest I've ever written, and it's not as long as the other ones, but I really wanted to get an update out. It's more of a transitional chapter; a way of getting me from point A to point B in the plot. The next one will be better (and hopefully up sooner), I promise!**

**Also, I couldn't think of a name for this chapter yet, so if you have any suggestions, let me know in a review!**

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><p>Never again was she going to take a shower at the trailer.<p>

Cristina wasn't sure what she had been expecting when she saw the glass door closing off the shower, maybe something more like what she had at home, but whatever her expectations had been, they weren't anything close to what she got. The shower was tiny, so small that Cristina herself barely fit in it. She didn't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times she had bumped some part of her body against the shower's walls. And the water! She'd set it as hot as it would go, and realized very quickly that even on that setting, she had no more than ten minutes of hot water, maximum. All in all, it had been the most miserable shower of her life.

Just to add insult to injury, Cristina discovered that Derek's towels were tiny. She could barely wrap one around her head, toga-style, to keep her hair dry, and the other one didn't even wrap all the way around her torso. She tried to imagine Derek drying himself off with one of these little things and had to laugh. There was no way.

_Meredith must never have had a shower here. Otherwise she would have definitely mentioned the towels, or made Derek get bigger ones. How is a girl expected to dry herself with towels like these?_

Sighing, Cristina wrapped the one remaining towel around herself as tightly as she could, trying to cover as much bare skin as possible. Hopefully, Owen would be outside, or doing the dishes; something that would keep him busy so he wouldn't see her come out of the shower half-naked. She had seen the way he watched her at breakfast and so she wasn't sure he would be able to control himself if he saw her dressed like this. Not that she would mind: hot, dirty sex would be the perfect remedy for everything that had happened in the last week.

_You know you could always get dressed in the shower and spare yourself the potential embarrassment,_ her subconscious chided, but Cristina ignored it. There was no way she was going to spend another second in this tiny shower. Besides, it was so tiny that trying to get dressed in here would be a nightmare. She was just going to have to take her chances. Tugging the towel a little tighter in a desperate attempt to make both ends meet, Cristina opened the door to the shower and crept out, praying that Owen was otherwise occupied.

"Is there any hot water left? I was hoping to have a quick—" Owen broke off as he caught sight of Cristina. His eyes widened as he took in her apparel—or lack thereof—and words failed him; he just stood there with his mouth open like a fish.

_Just my luck_, she thought. _Of course he has to turn around right when I am getting out of the shower basically naked. _

"I—" Owen stammered, face flushing. "Sorry." He turned away to give her privacy, but not quickly enough.

"There is no hot water left," Cristina said calmly, trying to pretend that her heart rate hadn't spiked upon seeing the look on Owen's face. "You really should talk to Derek about that next time you see him."

* * *

><p>After the appalling incident with the shower, Owen decided that now would be a good time to call Derek. He needed to escape the confines of the trailer, where images of Cristina in a tiny, white towel that barely covered her whole body, leaving far too much of that soft, creamy skin exposed chased themselves around his head.<p>

It was still snowing, and the porch was buried in snow that crept into Owen's shoes, but the cold, wet sensation was a welcome respite from the haunting visions of Cristina in the shower. It had been bad enough washing the dishes, knowing that Cristina was naked less than ten feet away from him and that if he walked by the glass door, he'd be able to see her silhouette; seeing her in that towel had almost caused him to lose it. He wasn't going to take advantage of her here, no matter what he circumstances. Owen was not that guy: the Mark Sloan-esque manwhore who slept with every attractive woman that walked by because he couldn't help himself. Sex was more important than that. It called for an occasion; it symbolized commitment. Besides, these feelings he had for Cristina were wild, dangerous feelings that Owen had little control over. He had to be careful, or he'd end up doing something he'd regret.

Despite the snow, it was peaceful, and Owen could see why Derek loved it up here so much. The cool air, the trees, the peacefulness, it was a great way to clear your head. You could just lose yourself in the natural beauty of this place.

Owen checked his watch. It was almost 9 o'clock. Hopefully, Derek wouldn't be in surgery. Hell, he might not even be at the hospital, in which case he was probably still in bed with Meredith. Either way, it would be nice if he'd answer his phone. There were some things Owen needed to clear up; things like heating, food, and the shower. Something really needed to be done about the shower, or at least about the towels.

He was surprised he even had service out here, especially during the storm. _Just another perk of living here, I guess_.

Derek picked up on the second ring. "Shepherd."

Owen was taken aback by how professional Derek sounded on the phone. "Shepherd. It's Hunt." He couldn't bring himself to use Derek's first name.

"Hunt. Hi. How are things up at the trailer? Richard said you're snowed in."

"Yeah," Owen said, glancing around at all the snow. "Did you make it in to work?"

"Yeah, I was lucky. I was on-call last night and I gto stuck here."

Owen couldn't help from chuckling. "Does that really make you lucky?" he teased.

Derek laughed. "No, I suppose it doesn't."

"You haven't got a full staff, have you?" Owen expected that most people, like him and Cristina were stuck at home.

"No we don't. A couple of people managed to come in this morning, but most of the people who are here were on last night and couldn't get home this morning. Richard's cancelled most of the elective procedures for today, since we're short-staffed."

"Oh. So who's all there?" Owen didn't know many of the doctors on the night shift—actually, if he thought about it, he didn't know many of the doctors working at Seattle Grace period—but he couldn't help wondering who he knew who had come in.

"Uh, well some Peds surgeon named Robbins and I were both on-call last night, so were O'Malley and Lexie Grey. Torres drifted in some time this morning since her apartment's right across the street." Derek paused thoughtfully, and Owen could practically hear the gears turning in his head. He knew what was coming. "Isn't Yang Torres' roommate? I would have thought a little bit of snow wouldn't stop her from coming in."

Owen sighed, unable to keep the smile off his face. "Yeah, funny story: she's here."

"What?" Derek snorted, and then burst out laughing. "Yang's at the trailer?"

Owen ran a hand through his hair. Even though Derek couldn't see him, he still felt embarrassed, memories of last night running through his head. "Yep. She was here when I arrived last night. I gave her quite a shock."

Derek chuckled. "I can imagine. Well, that explain why she's not here."

"Yeah." Owen couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Well you're in for one hell of a day."

"Yeah." No kidding, only not for the reasons that Derek thought.

" Have fun with that." He could picture Derek smirking.

"Yeah." Owen needed to stop saying that word. "Listen, Derek," he was desperate to change the subject, "about the trailer..."

* * *

><p>Cristina flopped listlessly through Ellis' journal. Interesting as it was, she just couldn't focus on it. She wanted to be <em>doing<em> surgeries, not reading about them. Her fingers were itching to cut, craving that satisfying feeling of a scalpel sinking into flesh. If this storm didn't let up soon, she'd be reduced to cutting herself, if only to attempt to suture herself back up again. _Thank God Owen is a trauma surgeon. If I do end up doing too much damage, he can go all macho army guy and fix me with a towel or something. _

There was the other reason she couldn't focus: Owen, who was outside in the blizzard doing God-only-knows-what. Owen, who'd made her eggs and coffee. Owen, whose eyes had burned into her when he saw her in that towel. Owen, whose tongue had been in her mouth two days ago.

She didn't know what it was about him. He wasn't her type at all, and yet, he was just so damn sexy. She couldn't even watch him chart without being slightly turned on. It was disarming, and, frankly, terrifying, but, at the same time, it was so right. Despite everything that had happened with Burke, she was ready to start something with Owen, even if it was only because she hadn't had sex in so long.

Had the not been fighting, Cristina would have called Meredith to discuss all of this. Meredith was her person; the one she could bitch and complain to about everything that was going on in her life. It would be nice to be able to talk to her person about this, about all the things that had happened to her in the last week. It was moments like these where the absence of Meredith was most heart-wrenching. Cristina needed someone to talk to, someone who would hear her confession and giver her advice, or tell that she was just being stupid. She couldn't call Meredith because they weren't speaking. Owen was here, but she couldn't talk to him either, because, well, that would just be awkward. He wasn't her person, and besides, she didn't talk about her feelings to anybody but Meredith.

Cristina wished Owen would come inside. She was sure it was cold out there, and the last thing she wanted to deal with was a sick Owen. She was a surgeon. She didn't do the flu. Besides, since he and she were both stuck here and there was no denying they had chemistry...well, there was nothing like hot, steamy sex to make you forget your need to cut. This way, Owen wouldn't have to worry about performing emergency surgery because she wouldn't feel compelled to give herself a potentially-surgery-worthy injury. Everyone would win.

The door opened, and Owen appeared, stomping his feet and shaking the snow out of his hair. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were red, almost, Cristina thought to herself, suppressing a smile, the same colour as his hair. She noticed as he peeled off his jacket—whose normally green-brown leather had turned white from all the snow—that his phone was in his hand, thereby explaining what he had been doing outside. _So you were calling someone. But who?_ Owen didn't have any friends as far as she knew, other than Derek, but she still didn't really believe that they were _friends_; Shepherd just didn't seem like Owen's type.

"Who were you calling?" Maybe the question was a little bit intrusive—judging by the look of surprise on Owen's face, he certainly seemed to think so—but they were stuck here together for the foreseeable future, so they may as well talk about _something_.

"Uh, Shepherd." For some reason, this answer seemed embarrassing: Owen's cheeks flushed; this combined with the cold turned his whole face a uniform shade of scarlet. "I had some questions about the, uh, trailer. You know seeing as we're stuck here..." Owen trailed off and looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. He and Shepherd had definitely talked about more than the trailer.

"How are things at the hospital?" Cristina resisted the urge to ask Owen if he had told Shepherd about the towels, not wanting to make him more uncomfortable than he already was. Besides, she was dying for news from the hospital.

"Fine." Owen looked visibly relieved. "Webber's cancelled the majority of the elective procedures for today, since most of the surgeons on-staff got stuck after the night shift."

"Is that why Shepherd's still there?" Cristina couldn't help feeling a little pleased that Meredith was stuck spending the whole day without Derek, while Cristina was spending the whole day closeted in a trailer with Owen. Karma was a bitch.

Owen nodded. "He was on-call last night and got stuck."

"Huh." Cristina smirked. "So there are no surgeries today?"

"Very few but that's only because of the weather. The hospital can function without you, Cristina." How was it that he was able to know exactly what she was thinking? Did he really know her so well after only having been working together for a few months?

"I wasn't insinuating that—" Cristina broke off, seeing the look on Owen's face. It was clear they both knew she was lying. "Didn't you want to have a shower?" she asked sharply, hoping to change the subject. The last thing she wanted right now was Owen Hunt making fun of her, not when she wanted him so badly.

Owen's face reddened again, his previous jibes about work forgotten. "Uh, well, I don't think there's any hot water left."

"There's some." Cristina couldn't understand his discomfort. He'd already seen her half naked; mind you, he'd seemed pretty uncomfortable about that. "It's been at least half an hour since I got out of the shower. Besides, it's not like you're going to get that much hot water out of this thing anyways."

"Well, I don't really need a shower," Owen said quickly, bending down to untie his boots so that they wouldn't track snow everywhere.

"What's the big deal, Owen? Scared of stripping in front of a girl? I would have thought that the army would have cured you of any self-consciousness," Cristina teased. She thought it was cute how he was so worried about being seen naked, but at the same time it was kind of annoying. He hadn't seemed like a prude when he had his tongue down her throat the other night, and she hoped that hadn't been a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

"No," Owen said, but his response was too quick: that was obviously the issue.

"Well if it's that big of a deal, I promise not to look." What was up with him? She would have thought that he wouldn't be terribly bothered about being seen in a tiny towel. It wasn't like he was going to be completely naked or anything. Oh God, was he a virgin? He couldn't be. He certainly didn't kiss like one.

"It's not that. It's—nothing." Owen brushed past Cristina and into the bedroom area. "Derek said that they should be around here somewhere," he mumbled, beginning to look trough the drawers.

"This is ridiculous. You're a grown man, Owen. Just have your damn shower. I'll go outside if it makes you feel better."

"Just drop it, Cristina! God, do you always have to be so miserable? Derek told me that I'd be in for one hell of a day with you, and I hoped that he would be wrong, but I guess not!" Owen snapped, abandoning his search for what Cristina assumed to be Derek's extra clothes.

Cristina froze. He told Derek? He told _Derek Shepherd_ that she was out here at the trailer with him? "You told _Derek_?" It's all she can do to keep her voice calm.

"Yes. Do you have a problem with that?" Owen glowered at her.

"Yes I do because you know what he's going to do now? He's going to tell Meredith and—"

"And what? Who cares if Meredith knows?" Owen interrupted.

Cristina couldn't say anything to explain herself. if she did, she'd have to admit that she didn't want Meredith to know that Cristina spent a whole day—possibly more—in the company of the man she was attracted to, because Meredith—being Meredith—would assume that they had sex, and then all of Cristina's comments about Meredith being the one who was too personal would all go out the window. She couldn't afford to give Meredith ammunition. "I can't believe it," she muttered, turning away from Owen.

"Now look who's making a big deal about nothing," he retorted. "I'm allowed to tell my friends things, Cristina."

"Not when your _friend_ happens to be dating my best friend who I'm not speaking to! Everything isn't always about you, you know."

"Everything isn't about _me_? Who was the one trying to get me to drive all the way back to Seattle last night because she didn't want to share a bed?" Owen tried to lighten the mood with his teasing tone, but it only infuriated Cristina more. This wasn't funny. Biting her tongue to keep from ripping Owen's head off—after all, they still had a whole day or so of being stuck together to face—she crossed the trailer to the door and began pulling on her coat.

"What are you doing?"

"Going out," she snapped, not wanting to have to deal with Owen any longer. "So that you can have your damn shower in peace."

"Cristina, wait," Owen began, but Cristina just stormed out, slamming the door in his face.


	5. Lost

**A/N: Thanks for all the reviews, alerts, favourites, etc. It really motivates me to write. Thanks to milee and for the great reviews. I would have sent you guys PMs to thank you for all the great feedback, but you don't have accounts, so I'll thank you here! And Laura, Owen was more embarrassed because he was surprised, and also a little terrified of losing control and taking Cristina right then and there. [Not that we wouldn't all have enjoyed that ;)]**

**Anyway, things start to get a little bit more interesting in this chapter. Hope you enjoy!**

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><p>Cristina was right about the shower. It <em>was<em> tiny, and there wasn't much hot water, but that wasn't something that bothered Owen terribly. The cold water was refreshing; it helped to clear his head. It was hard to think about anything when you were being doused in icy water.

Owen stayed in the shower until he couldn't take the cold anymore. He was glad that Cristina wasn't here when he got out because she definitely would have laughed at him; he was pink all over like a cooked lobster. Another perk to her being gone was that he didn't have to worry about the fact that Derek's towels were tiny; he could strut around the trailer naked for all anyone cared. There was no one to see him.

Derek was right: he had forgotten—or strategically left—some clothes here, and they all looked to be about Owen's size. He donned yesterday's T-Shirt and jeans, and pulled Derek's old Bowdoin sweatshirt over top to ward off the chill. It was starting to get pretty cold in here.

He wondered where Cristina was. She wasn't one for hiking, and the snow was pretty deep outside. He hoped she wasn't lost. She could easily die of exposure in a storm like this. He'd wait a while and see if she came back. If not, he'd have to go look for her.

Unsure of what to do to pass the time, Owen contemplated the trailer. It was a small space, smaller than his apartment, but somehow, it felt much more homey, perhaps because this was somewhere that had been lived in. Owen could hardly describe his apartment as a lived-in place; he barely spent any time there. Another thing he noticed: the place was full of Meredith and Cristina. He could see the little touches left by them all over the place: the Stanford hoodie draped over the back of the couch, the bottles of tequila in the fridge, one of Meredith's infamous Dartmouth shirts crumpled on the floor. It was as if the two friends had just left, as if they hadn't been fighting with each other for nearly a week now. The fighting was hard on Cristina, this much he knew, but she would never admit it to anyone. Admitting that she missed her best friend was considered an act of weakness, and Cristina refused to be weak. She was a hard-core surgeon, and she didn't show her feelings at work, to the point where people thought that she didn't have any.

As he perused the trailer, trying to ignore the intoxicating feeling of Cristina that was everywhere in here, his eyes alighted on the little black book that had Cristina so captivated last night. Curiosity piqued, he picked it up and flipped it over. Nothing about its contents could be determined from the cover, but when he opened it, he discovered it was a journal. Not Cristina's—she wasn't the journal keeping type—but Ellis Grey's.

_Aha,_ Owen thought to himself. _So here's one of the infamous journals that have been causing Derek so much misery._ He didn't know very much about Ellis Grey, but from what he'd heard, she reminded him quite a bit of Cristina, so he wasn't surprised that her journals were so interesting to the future cardio god.

He only meant to read a few pages to get a better understanding of what exactly it was that went on in Cristina's head—after all, this was probably the closest he'd ever get to her own personal journal—but a few pages soon became five or six, and, before he knew it, he had read the whole thing. It was quite fascinating from a surgical standpoint, and he could now understand why Meredith and Cristina were so hooked. It was all surgery; if there was anything going on in Ellis' life other than surgery, you didn't hear about it. This was exactly Cristina's type of thing.

_Cristina_. He had completely forgotten all about her. He'd been reading for easily an hour, and there was still no sign of her. She could be totally fine, hell, she could be sitting on the front porch, but something told him that wasn't the case. She was probably lost somewhere, but she was too proud to admit—even to herself—that she was lost. I someone didn't find her, she'd die of exposure.

Sighing, Owen heaved himself out of the armchair. Whether she wanted to see him or not, he was going to have to go look for her.

* * *

><p>For the first hour, Cristina told herself that she'd been too mad to really pay attention to where she was going. If she really thought about it, she'd be able to find her way back again. The woods couldn't be that big could they? For the second hour, she blamed the snow. Everything was a uniform shade of white, which would obviously make it a little confusing to find your way around an unfamiliar forest. She wasn't lost, she was just temporarily...confused. By the time the third hour rolled around, however, there was nothing left to do but admit she was lost. There were just too many trees, and too much snow. Cristina had been so angry when she'd set out that she hadn't been paying any attention to where she was going, and now that she was calm enough to care, she had no idea where she was and had no way of finding her way back because everything looked the same.<p>

Despite the fact that it must be early afternoon by now, it was getting steadily colder. At least, that's how it seemed to Cristina. The temperature may very well not have been changing, but Cristina was getting colder and colder by the minute. Her leather jacket wasn't meant to insulate against the cold, not to mention it wasn't waterproof, and the snow blanketing it was beginning to melt. She could feel the icy moisture seeping through the material and soaking the long-sleeved shirt underneath. Her feet were soaked too; her shoes had lost the battle against the snow within twenty minutes of leaving the house, probably because the snow almost came up to Cristina's knees. This made walking extremely difficult too. One would think that she wouldn't have been able to come very far in snow so deep, but anger could make you do surprising things.

There was no sign of the trailer. In fact, there was no sign of anything; the snow was coming down so hard that she couldn't even see her own footprints. How was she supposed to find her way back when she couldn't even follow her own footprints? She wasn't outdoorsy, and orienteering had certainly never been her thing. To her, a tree was a tree, absolutely identical to all of the other trees in the forest. Even if there was a trail, it was buried under God-only-knew how many feet of snow, rendering it utterly useless to Cristina.

She was starting to get really cold—so much so that she could barely walk because she was shivering so much—and tired. All she wanted to do was lie down on the snow and have a nap. _You're not supposed to sleep when you're cold_. Cristina could picture Meredith as clearly as if she were right there, chiding her with a disapproving expression on her face. _You'll get hypothermic and die. _

_Yeah, but you're supposed to try and stay warm too, and the best way to that is bury yourself in snow and curl up,_ she argued. _At least I think that's what you're supposed to do. _

_ Like you know the first thing about surviving in the wild,_ the imaginary Meredith retorted. _You don't even go camping. _

_ Well neither do you. Just because you've spent some nights with Derek at the trailer doesn't make you a fucking wilderness expert. _She hated how, even in her mind, Meredith had to try and seem so lofty.

_Owen is going to _kill_ you. _

_Why? _Cristina did her best to seem innocent. _He's just a co-worker. He probably doesn't even know I'm gone. He's too busy...cutting wood or something. _Cristina refused to admit even to an imaginary Meredith that she wished more than anything that Owen would suddenly appear. It was starting to get really cold out here.

_Just a co-worker?_ Meredith snorted. _Since when do you make out with your co-workers?_

_ How do you know about that?_ Cristina was flabbergasted._ I never told you anything!_

Meredith smiled. _You're my person Cristina. I know things. Besides, I'm not completely blind. I've seen how you look at each other, and how he gets all tongue-tied when he's around you. It's actually kind of cute. _

_Cute? You think Owen and I are CUTE? I don't do cute,_ Cristina snapped.

Meredith rolled her eyes. _I know YOU don't do cute. I was saying that it's cute how Owen gets all nervous when you're around. It's like high school all over again._

High school. The thought made Cristina shudder. What a nightmare high school had been. _There was nothing cute about high school, Meredith. _

_ I know._ Meredith sighed. Cristina understood, high school had been the same for both of them: an experience they tried very hard to forget. For Cristina, it had been full of schoolwork, straight A's, fights with her mother, and bitchy little blonde cheerleaders. For Meredith, it had been a blur of boys, parties, hangovers and even more fights with her mother.

Still shivering, Cristina lay down on the snow and curled herself into a ball. The snow was cold and wet, but the wind was less cutting now that she was on the ground, and it was a little warmer. She wasn't getting any colder, which was good, or else it meant that she that she was too cold to feel a change in temperature, which was not good.

The only problem with lying down was that it was harder and harder not to give in the exhaustion that was beginning to take over. She knew she wasn't supposed to sleep, but it was just so tempting to closer her eyes and drift away.

_Don't you dare, Cristina Yang. Don't you dare._ Meredith's voice filled her brain, furious. _You can't go to sleep, you hear me?_

_It's only for a minute,_ Cristina protested wearily. _I'm just going to close my eyes for a minute. I promise._

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><p>The snow didn't seem to be letting up at all. In fact, it was getting harder and harder to see where he was going. The fact that he—someone who was comfortable in the outdoors, and who had no trouble finding his way around in the wilderness—was having trouble keeping track of where he was going meant that there was no hope that Cristina would know how to find her way back. He wasn't even sure at this point that he even knew where she had gone. He'd already been out for twenty-five minutes and was still wandering in the direction he <em>thought<em> Cristina might have gone, without any indication of whether or not she had actually gone that way.

For the second time in the last ten minutes, Owen stopped to reassess his position. His tracks were still visible on the ground, but at the rate the snow was coming down, they wouldn't be half an hour from now. He glanced around, and made note of the giant hemlock growing ten feet to his left. It was a pretty noticeable tree, probably several hundred years old, and would make an excellent landmark.

There was still no sign of Cristina, nor was there any indication that she had passed by this way. She probably hadn't thought to look for landmarks; knowing her, the possibility of getting lost in the storm probably hadn't even crossed her mind. She would have just stormed off in the woods, blinded by her anger and her pride, and would realize much later that she was cold and tired and had no idea where she was or how she could get back to the trailer. So now it was up to Owen to try and find her, but, in this weather, it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

The frustration that had been slowly and discreetly building inside of him ever since Cristina had stormed out was suddenly too much to bear. She could be anywhere in these damn woods and he had no way of finding her, and all because she was too damn proud to pay attention to where she was going. "Dammit!" Owen yelled, slamming his fist into the trunk of a nearby tree. The withered bark sliced through the skin over his knuckles, leaving his hand not throbbing and stinging, but also bleeding. Exactly what he wanted to deal with right now. Time was running out for Cristina, wherever she was, and the clock was now beginning to tick for him too: he couldn't go too long without dealing with his hand.

As he plunged deeper into the woods, Owen was glad that he was alone. He'd been able to keep his PTSD pretty well concealed so far from the rest of the hospital staff, and the last thing he wanted was any of them—especially Cristina—seeing him in one of his rages. He didn't want to have to imagine that look of terror that people got after seeing him lose control in her eyes. She didn't have to know anything. He was going to be fine.

There was still no sign of her. No footprints on the ground, no pieces of hair or clothing snagged on a tree branch. Nothing. It was like she hadn't been out here at all. There had to be something, some trace of her existence. She was out here somewhere; surely she had left some evidence of her passage. It hadn't been snowing that much since he'd come out, had it?

The frustration was beginning to fade away, and desperation was taking its place. He was running out of time. She had already been out here several hours, inadequately dressed; if he didn't find her soon, she was going to die of exposure. She couldn't die. Not now. Not yet. After everything that had happened with Beth, and with Teddy, he needed this. He needed this—whatever it was that he and Cristina had between them—to work out. Cristina was his lifeline, his salvation. He needed her to be there for him.

Suddenly, his foot sank deep into the snow, deeper than it had been before. Almost as if...he had stepped in someone else's footprint. Sure enough, he could see the indents from footprints that hadn't yet been completely filled up by the falling snow.

Owen could feel the crushing relief. He wasn't stumbling blindly in the dark. He had a trail. These tracks had to be relatively fresh; at the rate the snow was falling, they couldn't be more than an hour old. Cristina had passed by this way not too long ago. Energy renewed, he set off in her footsteps.

At first, he didn't see her. Curled up beneath a tree and mostly covered in snow, she was almost completely camouflaged. In fact, had it not been for the fact that the footprints ended, he would have kept going without even seeing her.

At a glance, she appeared to be sleeping. Normally, that wouldn't have been a bad thing—Cristina didn't strike Owen as the type who slept much—but in this weather, it made Owen's heart clench. Sleeping when you were cold was the worst thing you could do. From there your body shut down and you died. Owen prayed he wasn't too late to wake her up.

From the way the snow covered her, Owen guessed that she had tried to cover herself with snow, probably to try and keep warm. For someone who had no survival skills, she'd done pretty well to try and stay warm, only she hadn't buried herself very well because she was still half uncovered. She'd had the right idea, but by not completely covering herself, she was probably only making herself colder and wetter.

He wanted to grab her and shake her senseless. He wanted to yell at her about the incredible stupidity of what she had done, but he knew that right now, neither of those was going to help the situation.

"Cristina." He knelt down and touched her shoulder gently, as if he were afraid to break her. Her coat was ice cold and soaked, which made the tendrils of doubt and worry creep back up again. Cold and wet were not a good combination in this weather, especially after extended periods of time. "Cristina, wake up."

"Mmmph."

Owen was so relieved he could have kissed her. She wasn't asleep after all, but in that hazy state between sleep and wakefulness. This was good. This meant that she most likely wasn't going to die. He began brushing the snow off her briskly, exposing more and more soaked jacket. She watched him with a slightly bemused expression on her face; he wondered what about this was so amusing to her.

"How do you feel?" He wasn't going to take any chances with her. No matter what he had said this morning about the weather, if he needed to, he wouldn't hesitate to drive her to the hospital.

"Cold," she mumbled. Owen didn't like the how lethargic she was. She wasn't even shivering any more. All the more reason, he supposed, to be thankful that he had found her when he did.

"I know you are," he murmured, thanking God that he had had the good sense to put on Derek's Bowdoin sweatshirt as he peeled off his coat and wrapped it around Cristina. At least he'd have something to keep himself warm on the walk back to the trailer. "But you're going to be warm soon. I'm going to take you back to the trailer, and we'll get you some warm clothes, and a nice, hot bowl of soup, okay?"

"Mmmm." Cristina was beginning to drift off; Owen could see her eyes beginning to drift shut.

"Hey, you need to stay awake, okay? I know you're tired, but you can't go to sleep right now. You have to wait until you've warmed up," he said firmly, scooping her up into his arms. She was quite light, but then again, he shouldn't have been surprised, after all, he'd been the one to scoop her up and carry her into the hospital after she got impaled by that icicle.

"Right," she mumbled wearily. "Because then Meredith will be right. She's not allowed to be right."

_Meredith?_ Owen frowned. Was she delusional? Meredith had nothing to do with this, or at least not as far as he knew. Their fight had been about that thing with the interns, not about survival skills. "Really?" He figured that at this point, it was just best to play along. "Well, we can't have that, can we?"

"No." Even though her voice was feeble, there was no mistaking the stubbornness. "No we can't."

Owen tucked Cristina's head under his chin and smiled. It was cute how even when she was practically hypothermic, Cristina didn't lose her stubbornness of her competitive spirit. "All the more reason to stay awake, then." Shifting his grip on Cristina, he hunched his shoulders against the falling snow, trying to bundle her as far away from the cold as he could, and set off back towards the trailer.

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><p><strong>So what do you think? Liked it? Hated it? Did you like the imaginary Meredith? Or was she just too weird? (If she's popular, she might make another appearance or two.) Let me know. The more reviews, the more motivated I am to update! :)<strong>


	6. Delirium

**A/N: Sorry it took me longer than anticipated to update! I had a lot of schoolwork to do, and I was away for track and field all weekend, but I've finally got the next chapter ready! I'm hoping to have another update soon, but I can't promise anything. School is finally beginning to wind down, but I haven't written the next chapter yet, and I've still got some assignments to finish up. I'll try my best, though!**

**Also, huge thanks to everyone who reviewed! Your feedback really hopes me improve the story and inspires me to update quicker! **

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><p>Cristina wanted to sleep more than anything. She wanted to close her eyes and drift away into warm blackness and sweet dreams of Owen kissing her. Unfortunately, she had to stay awake; Owen would kill her if she didn't.<p>

She wasn't as cold now. Cristina was positive that she hadn't warmed up much since being found, but her body had stopped registering the coldness, which could be interpreted as a good or bad sign. Owen's jacket was thick leather, thicker than hers and therefore more durable; it seemed to insulate pretty well too. It kept her warm—and by warm she meant not any colder—and it helped her stay awake. Tired as she was, it was hard to fall asleep when she was drowning in Owen's smell; that deliciously masculine combination of aftershave, leather, and mint. The leather and aftershave made sense to her, but she'd never been able to understand the mint. Maybe it was in her head, like Meredith. Was Meredith really a hallucination? Or was Cristina just imagining what Meredith would say were she here?

_I'm still here you know._ She could picture Meredith frowning at her, sulking at having been forgotten. It was an interesting picture now, because Meredith seemed to be floating in the air right behind Owen's head. Most interesting.

_Of course you're still here. You're in my head, remember? A figment of my imagination._

Meredith just grinned. It seemed she wanted to say something, but whatever it was, Cristina never found out because Owen—a real person—started talking.

"How are you doing?" His voice sounded kind of fuzzy and distorted, but the concern was still palpable.

"Mmm," she mumbled. "M'fine."

"That's good. We're almost there."

"M'kay."

_You know,_ Meredith said, smirking. _This is all very romantic. Owen comes and saves you in the middle of the woods and then carries you off to the trailer. He's like your knight in shining...whatever._

_ Derek is the knight in shining whatever, _Cristina snapped. She didn't want this thing between her and Owen to be all sappy and romance-y. That was Derek and Meredith. That wasn't her. _Owen's more like GI Joe. He's sexier._

_ Derek is _my_ knight in shining whatever,_ Meredith argued. _You don't have one. Though I wont deny GI Joe is kind of sexy. _

"Mmm," Cristina mumbled. "Very sexy."

Owen chuckled. He should probably be worried that she was slightly delirious, but this was just too cute. He wondered what exactly she was imagining that was so sexy, and couldn't help wondering if he featured in these imaginings in some way.

It didn't really dawn on him how cold Cristina was until the reached the trailer. No sooner had he set foot inside—which seemed quite warm after the frigidity of outside—was Cristina's whole body wracked with tremors. She was shivering so hard that he could barely hold onto her, and the rattle of her teeth clacking against each other was deafening. Not knowing what else to do with her, he dumped her on the bed and paused to think. He needed to warm her up. The shower was too small, and besides, there wouldn't be enough hot water to warm her up properly. The first thing to do was to get rid of her wet clothes. Working quickly and trying to treat her the way he would any other patient, Owen stripped away the wet clothes. His abdomen constricted slightly at the sight of her naked, but the feeling disappeared as it dawned on him how incredibly vulnerable she looked. He found some dry, clean-looking clothes on the floor, and dressed her. He wasn't sure if they were actually her clothes, or Meredith's but clothes were clothes. Cristina was beyond caring anyways. She was still shivering, so he bundled her under the blankets and went to turn on the kettle. He'd make tea or coffee or something; a warm drink would do them both some good.

With the kettle se to boil, Owen busied himself with tidying the trailer. There was no point in bothering with the mess that had been there before—after all, it wasn't his mess to clean up—but he could clean up the mess that he had made—namely Cristina's wet clothes littered on the floor. Not wanting to get anything else wet and knowing he couldn't hang them out to dry, Owen tossed them in the shower. He then changed his socks, which were wet and clingy, and replaced them with a dry pair of Derek's. He searched the cabinets for a thermometer, unable to block out the sound of Cristina's teeth clacking together. The fact that she was shivering meant that her body was registering the fact that it was extremely cold.

It had become apparent, though, that if there was a thermometer in here, he wasn't going to find it any time soon, if at all. Owen squashed he frustration beginning to well up inside him again. He could not afford to lose control now. He had to keep in control, but he needed a thermometer. He needed to check whether or not Cristina had a fever. She could have pneumonia, or worse, hypothermia. There had to a thermometer in here somewhere. This trailer was owned by a surgeon for Chrissake!

A memory rose up suddenly: him, as a child at home in bed. It was one of those rare days when he got the flu, and he was raring to get outside and play, to get on with his life. Owen was that kid who despised being ill because, in his opinion, there were so many other things that he could be doing with his time. He remembered begging his mother to let him go and play, trying to convince her that he was fine, and her kissing him on the forehead to check if the fever had indeed disappeared. It wasn't medically accurate, but it was pretty foolproof; after all, mothers used it all across the world. And in lieu of anything else...

"Hey," Owen said softly, sitting down on the bed beside Cristina. "How are you feeling?"

She turned her head slowly so that she was facing him, eyes barely even open. "C-cold," she whispered.

"I'm just going to check and see if you have a fever, and then I'll go find some more blankets, okay?" Owen said gently, brushing some hair out of her face. It was damp, whether from sweat or melting snow, he had no idea. He prayed that Derek kept extra blankets at the trailer.

"M'kay," she mumbled, already slipping away into unconsciousness.

"Hey, you stay awake, okay? We've got to warm you up before you can sleep." Owen shook her shoulder gently and watched as her eyelids fluttered reluctantly. "I know you're tired," he murmured, bending down to brush his lips against her forehead, "but you just need to stay awake for a little bit longer, and then you can sleep as long as you want." Her forehead wasn't warm, but not cold either. No fever for now. That was good, but that didn't mean she wouldn't contract on later on. He'd have t monitor her temperature to make sure she didn't contract pneumonia or something worse.

"Wh-what are you d-doing?" Cristina mumbled. At first, Owen wasn't sure what she meant, but then he realized she must have been talking about the kissing. He couldn't help but smile. "I was taking your temperature."

"Y-you d-don't have to k-kiss me to do th-that. You k-know that d-doesn't work." She seemed a little bit more alert now, which was a relief; he didn't want to have to be constantly reminding her she needed to stay awake.

"I couldn't find a thermometer," Owen replied calmly, as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world.

"I'm s-sure D-Derek has a th-thermometer. He's a s-surgeon after all." Cristina frowned as if trying to really hard to remember something important.

"Derek doesn't live here anymore. He may have taken the thermometer with him when he moved in with Meredith."

"No—we have—w-we have a f-first aid k-kit here somewhere," Cristina mumbled urgently. "M-Meredith b-brought one out here, or m-maybe –Derek left it here—but it's h-here s-somewhere."

"Well, we'll find it later, okay? You don't have a fever right now, but I'll check again in a little bit."

"Y-you just w-want to k-kiss me again, don't y-you?" Cristina whispered, eyelids fluttering again.

Owen chuckled. "Yes. I do," he admitted, knowing full well she wasn't going to remember any of this when she woke up.

"Y-you know, that's r-really inap-ppropriate," Cristina chided. "T-taking advantage of a s-sick p-person like this."

"Mmm." Owen agreed, absentmindedly stroking her hair. "Very inappropriate."

The kettle whistled shrilly, and Owen sprung up, feeling slightly guilty. Cristina had only been joking, but there was truth in her words: he was coming very close to taking advantage of her; exactly what he'd promised himself he wouldn't do. He wasn't that guy. He didn't ever want to be that guy.

The kettle was boiling hot, and there was nothing to lift it with. Owen cast an eye around the kitchen, looking for a potholder, a placemat, a dishtowel, anything that he could wrap around the handle. In the end, he just pulled down the sleeve of his sweatshirt and moved the kettle very quickly.

"Owen?" Cristina called feebly. Her teeth didn't seem to be chattering as badly now, which meant that she was warming up a little, but she sounded so vulnerable, it was heartbreaking.

"I'm right here, Cristina," he replied calmly, fighting the urge to run to her and hold her until she felt better.

"I'm c-cold," she mumbled, seeming embarrassed to admit it. This didn't really surprise Owen; Cristina was used to being in control all the time and she hated admitting anything that could be interpreted as a weakness. She was used to surviving on her own in a cutthroat world where being anything other than the best got you hurt.

"Well, let me see if I can find another blanket." He cast a desperate eye around the trailer, as if willing blankets to suddenly appear. "Do you know if Derek keeps extras around here."

"C-could you just...h-hold me?"

Cristina's question was so quiet that Owen wondered for a moment if he had heard her correctly. When he glanced her way for clarification, he noticed that she wasn't even looking at him, which made him all the more certain that what he had heard had indeed been what she'd said. She seemed highly embarrassed, but, like when she had admitted she was cold, Owen wasn't surprised; asking to be held, to be comforted, was a major sign of weakness in her eyes.

"Of course," Owen said quietly, crossing the trailer to the bed. He tried very hard to stay calm; Cristina wouldn't want him to make a big deal about this. In fact, she'd probably make him swear never to mention it again. Little did she know that what she considered to be a huge admission of weakness was the one thing that Owen had been longing to do since he had found her in the woods. He removed his shoes quietly, trying to keep his face impassive, and, pulling back the blankets, climbed into bed beside her. As he gathered her in his arms, he became acutely aware of the fact that she was still shivering violently. She was so cold that Owen was taken aback. Holding her was like holding an ice block. It was pitiful. He pulled her close into his chest and tucked her head under his chin, hoping that the proximity would warm her up even quicker. "Better?" he asked, voice muffled by her hair; wet as it was, it smelled like mangoes, from her shampoo he supposed.

Cristina nodded weakly, face pressed into his chest. "Mmhmm."

He was losing her again. Owen contemplated waking her up, but she was so clearly exhausted that his guilt in doing so escalated every time he did, and she had warmed up a bit. If he was going to be with her the whole time, he supposed a little sleep wouldn't hurt her; he'd be able to check on her regularly and make sure that she wasn't dying.

"You can sleep now," he murmured, stroking her hair with his hand, the way he used to his sister's whenever she had a nightmare.

"I w-won't die?" Cristina slurred; he wasn't sure if she was teasing or not.

"You won't die," he soothed. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

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><p>Cristina might be dying. She wasn't sure, but it seemed entirely possible that death was an imminent part of her future. It seemed like a logical explanation: she'd been exposed to extreme cold and extreme weather for an extended period of time, and, upon being found, she'd been exhausted and lethargic. She was probably hypothermic. At the very least, she felt miserable enough for it to be reasonable to assume that she might quite possibly be dying.<p>

Some time had passed. She wasn't sure how much; ever since Owen had told her she could sleep, everything had been a confusing blur of dreams and reality, leaving her lying there, dazed, trying to distinguish the reality from the dreams. She was never quite sure if she was sleeping or awake, if she was hallucinating or not. All the more reason to believe that she was dying.

_Am I dying?_ She wondered. You couldn't feel this awful and not be dying, could you?

_Of course you're not dying._ Cristina could picture Meredith rolling her eyes. _You think I'd let you die before you and I made up?_

_You'd __let me die?_ Had she not been so inebriated, Cristina would have laughed. _Like you can exercise any power over my life. You're in my head. A figment of my imagination. You're just saying what I imagine you'd say if you were here._

_Regardless, you're not dying,_ Meredith said sharply. _You can't leave. Not when things are just starting to heat up between you and Owen._

_They are not, _Cristina snapped. _Well, okay, maybe a little_, she conceded, seeing the look on Meredith's face. _But it's not like anything's going to happen, anyways._

_Why not? You seemed pretty open to it when you were not-so-secretly-flirting with him at work all the time and making out with him outside Joe's—_

_That wasn't me,_ Cristina protested. _He pretty much assaulted me._

_Yeah, but you were a little bit turned on by it._ Meredith winked.

_Maybe, but it was a little bit confusing. And terrifying. It was so sudden and so rough...It scared me Meredith. Not only because it was so rough and unexpected, but also because part of me enjoyed it. I don't know that I want to enjoy it._

_Is this about Burke?_ Meredith asked, eyebrows raised. _Because you know that Owen and Burke are two completely different people, right? Owen doesn't really strike me as the leave-you-at-the-altar type. He's more like the marry-my-soul-mate type. _

_Yeah, but I don't do soul mates._ Even thinking the word made Cristina's insides churn uncomfortably. She wasn't a warm-and-fuzzy-lifetime-commitment kind of girl. The relationship she'd had with Burke had been the longest relationship she'd had in her whole life, and look how that had gone. _I don't think I'm cut out for relationships,_ she confessed. _Maybe I'm more of a casual fling kind of girl. _

_Owen doesn't do casual flings,_ Meredith warned. _And besides, just because things didn't work out with Burke doesn't mean that they won't with Owen. You have to be willing to let yourself fall again._

_But that's what I'm afraid of. Falling, I mean. _Cristina tried to think of a way to formulate her thoughts in a way that wasn't nonsensical. _When I was with Burke, I gave so much all the time, just to try and make him happy. I changed myself because I thought that I would be happy no matter who I was, as long as I had him. And then I didn't have him, and it made me realize that I wasn't me anymore, and that, even if we'd gotten married, I still wouldn't have been happy. He wasn't enough to make me happy, not if I couldn't be me. And what scares me is the fact that he had to leave me at the altar for me to realize that. I don't want that to happen again._

Meredith looked entirely too sympathetic. Being all whole-and-healed-and-living-with-McDreamy hadn't done her much good. She was entirely too warm and gooey all the time. _You don't know that happen with Owen. He may not ask you to change for him. _She paused thoughtfully. _Maybe you should talk to him about it._

In her head, Cristina snorted. _Since when did you get all sappy and let's-share-our-feelings-with-everyone? You're the one who almost lost the love of your life several times because of your inability to articulate your feelings._

_And I paid for it, didn't I? And with regards to me being all sappy, _you're _the one who's imagining me. This is how you see me. Which is sad, really. I'm not sappy all the time. I've still got some dark and twisty in me. _Meredith winked.

_Yeah. Whatever. _Cristina didn't want to talk about this anymore. She just wanted to sleep, and hope that she wouldn't feel like dying when she woke up.

_You can go to sleep, you know,_ Meredith said, rolling her eyes. _I'm not going anywhere. I'm in your head, remember?_

_I _really_ hope I get better soon,_ Cristina thought to herself. The thought of having to deal with Meredith in her head, making snide remarks about her and Owen all the time and being all supportive and therapist-like made her want to scream and rip her hair out.

Beside her, Owen shifted his weight, causing the image of Meredith to drift away. It must be nighttime, because he was fast asleep, arms still wrapped around her. He was so warm, so sturdy; Cristina had never felt so safe in anyone's arms before. As long as Owen was holding her, she didn't feel so awful, nor did she have trouble distinguishing dreams and reality. Meredith may be in her head, but Owen was here, warm, solid, and sleeping with her in his arms. Whether or not Meredith remained, Owen would still be here in the morning.

And so, with her face buried in his chest and her head filled with his familiar scent, she drifted off to sleep.

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><p><strong>Reviews make me update faster! :)<strong>


	7. Save Me Before I Burn

**A/N: Sorry that it took me so long to update! I've been working on other projects and studying for exams, but now that I'm officially on summer break, I'm going to try and update much quickly. I'm aiming for a chapter a week for both this one and Help, I'm Alive, but I can't promise that I'll be able to stay exactly on task. Sometimes it may be less than a week, sometimes more. But I will try and update as quickly as I possibly can! **

**Big thank you to everyone who reviewed this. Your reviews are really great and I love hearing what you think about each chapter! Keep them coming!**

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><p>It was freezing.<p>

Owen registered this fact dimly as he woke up. He couldn't feel his toes, and his facial muscles ached from cold when they moved. It was worse than all of those nights he'd spent in Iraq, and the desert could get pretty cold at night. The strange thing was, as cold as his extremities were, his torso was warm. Uncomfortably warm, actually.

Frowning, Owen propped himself up on his elbow to get a better view of the bed. As he shifted, something moved beside him, mumbling incomprehensibly. The thing moving turned out to be Cristina, and as Owen brushed his lips against her burning forehead, he suddenly realized where all the heat was coming from. She had a fever. A bad fever.

Owen suddenly wished that he had a thermometer. The good old-fashioned kiss-on-the-forehead test just wasn't going to cut it anymore. He needed to be able to measure her temperature exactly so that he could see specifically how bad the fever was. If it was really bad, he was going to have to take her to the hospital.

There had to be a thermometer here somewhere. What was it Cristina had said? Something about a first aid kit with a thermometer in it. He tried his hardest to remember their conversation, only to realize that she hadn't been able to remember where the first aid kit was either.

Owen sighed and rubbed his face. He was going to have to rip up the whole bloody trailer looking for it.

First things first, though, he needed to find more blankets. And clothes. Neither of them had enough layers on. Cristina may not feel the cold because she was burning up with fever, but she still needed to be kept warm. She wasn't going to recover if she was freezing all the time, and Owen couldn't look after her if he was dying of hypothermia himself.

He had another sweatshirt in the truck. He kept it in the back seat for those days when he forgot to put his coat on in the morning, or didn't layer up enough. The thought of having to go outside to get it made him cringe, but he was going to need it. He was pretty sure Derek had sleeping bags here somewhere; the man was a huge outdoor enthusiast after all, and it made much more sense to keep his camping and fishing stuff here rather than at Meredith's. Problem was Owen had no idea where Derek kept any of this stuff.

Owen dragged a desperate hand through his hair and glanced at his watch. It was quarter to eleven. Was it too late to call Derek? Was Derek even awake? He'd feel bad if he woke Derek up, but at the same time, he really needed to find the first aid kit and some more sleeping bags. He'd tear up the trailer if he had to, but calling Derek seemed like a much more logical solution that would save him so much more time.

Thankfully, Derek answered his phone on the second ring. "Hello?" He sounded absolutely exhausted, and Owen felt a stab of guilt.

"Shepherd? It's Hunt."

"Owen! How are things going at the trailer?" Despite the weariness in his tone, there was a hint of playful teasing.

"Fine," Owen said quickly. "Look, I'm sorry if I woke you."

"Oh, don't worry about it. I don't really sleep well at the hospital anyways." Owen could understand this. The on-call rooms at Seattle Grace didn't exactly encourage a good night's sleep. Perhaps it was because everything smelled sterile, like disinfectant, or because just thinking about all the people who had probably had sex on that bed made sleep become the last of your priorities, or perhaps because they were so lonely. "Besides, I can understand if you needed an escape from Cristina." Had Owen been able to see Derek, he would have sworn the other man winked.

"Actually, it's not about that." Owen wondered how exactly to address the issue of Cristina. "I was wondering if you had a first aid kit somewhere. And maybe some extra blankets? It's starting to get really cold up here."

There was a pause on the other end of the line, as Derek processed what Owen had said. "A first aid kit? Yeah, it's under the sink. Doesn't Cristina know where it is?"

"Well..." Owen considered telling Derek the truth. Then he remembered how pissed Cristina had been and decided against it. "She couldn't remember where it was."

"Oh, okay. What happened?"

"I cut myself." This was technically true, and something that Owen had forgotten about up until now. Now that it had stopped bleeding, he could see that it wasn't actually very deep. He could put a band-aid on it to cover it and keep it from re-opening, but it wasn't going to need any kind of medical attention.

"Well, there should be gauze and band-aids in there. I can't promise there'll be any sutures, though," Derek said, laughter rumbling thought the phone with a rush of static.

"That's fine." Owen suppressed a smile at the assumption that all surgeons had miniature suture kits in their first-aid kits. "It's not that bad."

"As for blankets, there are some sleeping bags under the bench at the table. If you move the cushions, you'll see there are some cupboards underneath. The sleeping bags should be in there. There's also some fresh bed linens in there too, I think."

Owen nodded, glancing at the seat. He could see that the cushions were removable. "Handy."

"I know, right?" He could picture Derek's grin. "I also have a space heater. It used to be under the sink too, but Meredith may have moved it when we were packing my stuff. It might be in the luggage compartment under the trailer."

Owen sighed, praying that it wasn't there. The last thing he wanted was to be digging around in the snow looking for the damned luggage compartment. "All right. Thanks, Derek."

"No problem. Call me if you need anything else. God knows I'm not going anywhere."

He chuckled as he hung up, remembering how adamant Cristina had been to get in to work this morning. Had she been able to go, he wasn't so sure that she would be enjoying it anymore. Getting stuck at Seattle Grace with Derek Shepherd probably wasn't what she had in mind when she was insisting on going in this morning. He had a feeling that Derek was glad Cristina had gotten stuck out here as well. Spending the whole day with Cristina was not part of Derek's ideal day either.

A garbled mumble coming from the direction of the bedroom pulled Owen from his thoughts. _Cristina_. Dammit. In those few moments since hanging up the phone, he had completely forgotten that she wasn't just sleeping in the bed. Guilt stabbed at him like a knife to the gut. He shouldn't have forgotten about her. He was here to look after her, not cast her aside, even for a moment, because more interesting things had invaded his mind. He couldn't afford to forget about her because he was terrified that she might slip away if he did.

Afraid she might be waking up and not wanting her to wake up alone, Owen headed back over to the bed. As he watched, Cristina tossed and turned a couple of times—tangling herself hopelessly in the sheets in the process—and mumbled incomprehensibly before stilling. Her face was flushed and she was drenched in sweat, which caused her hair to cling to her face and neck in damp strands. It appeared that in the short few minutes that Owen had been on the phone, she had gotten worse. The knowledge of this only made his guilt in forgetting her worse. What if something more serious had happened while he hadn't been paying attention to her?

It was a miracle that she hadn't woken up. She was so hot and feverish that Owen was surprised she was able to stay asleep. Having been on the receiving end of a bad fever before, he knew first hand how uncomfortable it was to be burning up, and knew that he was never able to get much sleep when he was sick without the help of medication, none of which Cristina had been given. Owen reached up to brush a few sweaty strands of hair out of her face, trying very carefully not to disturb her—he knew all too well that once she did wake up, she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep for a long time afterwards—and frowned when his fingertips made contact with her skin. It was very warm, uncomfortably warm, and warmer than he remembered it being when he had checked before leaving the bed. There was no denying now that she was getting worse, and the temperature of her skin was concerning. She shouldn't be this hot with a simple fever.

Cursing himself for being so careless, even for a moment, Owen rose and crossed the trailer to the sink. He wrenched open the cupboard doors, barely able to keep a lid on his anger at himself. That anger was momentarily replaced by relief as he noticed not only the first aid kit, but also the space heater stuffed in the cupboard space; the last thing Owen wanted was to be digging in God-only-knew how many feet of snow to get to the luggage compartment to get at that bloody space heater. He sent a small thank-you to Meredith for having left it where it was.

Just as Derek had said, there was a thermometer in the first aid kit. It was one of the newer ones, the kind that you stuck in someone's ear to check their temperature, and, judging by the brand name, was high quality. Owen was a more traditional man when it came to taking temperatures: he'd always been more of a fan of the old stick-under-the-tongue thermometers, but in this case, he was glad that Derek had a newer one; he didn't want to have to wake Cristina up in order to take her temperature.

Gently brushing aside a few pieces of hair, Owen inserted the thermometer and waited for the temperature read-out. Cristina stirred briefly when he stuck the thermometer in her ear, but settled after a moment. Owen noticed that her breathing was becoming slightly more labored, a sure sign of congestion. He sighed. From the looks of it, Cristina had contracted pneumonia. Owen had only had it once, when he was a teenager, but he still remembered the experience quite clearly, and none of his recollections were pleasant ones. This was going to be a long, rough ride for both of them.

The thermometer beeped, and Owen glanced down hastily at the display. He stared at it for a few seconds before removing the thermometer and inserting it again. There must have been some mistake. That couldn't have been right. He'd read it wrong, that was all. The thermometer beeped again, and when Owen glanced at it, he could feel the icy tendrils of dread creeping up in the pit of his stomach. 103.9º.

Owen needed to get to the hospital. 103.9º wasn't the kind of fever that you could treat in a trailer in the middle of freaking nowhere. 106º was considered fatal, and at 105º, you were looking at the possibility of organ failure. He was going to have to bundle her up well to keep her from being exposed to the cold, and he was going to have to take her to the hospital. They'd be able to put her on fluids, and get some cooling packs to try and bring down her temperature.

It was still snowing outside. Not very hard, but the wind was gusting full-force, blowing the falling snow and the snow that had already fallen in every direction, making it look like the snowfall was much worse. Owen stood on the porch, coat collar turned up against the wind, squinting through the white at the looming shape that was his truck, or the top of his truck. The bottom of it was completely buried under snow, so much snow that Owen realized his chances of being able to open door were next to none. Even if he could scrape away enough snow to be able to open the door, there was no way that he was going to be able to move the truck. There was simply too much snow.

"Dammit!" Owen cried, kicking one of Derek's patio chairs in frustration. He hated this kind of weather. Normally, Owen loved the snow, but when it prevented him from bringing someone that he really cared about to the hospital, he wasn't so enamored by it. The one time Cristina got sick, the one time she needed immediate medical attention, there was so much damn snow on the roads that he couldn't take her to the hospital.

He was going to have to take care of her here.

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><p>Cristina had always been told that Hell was the hottest place on Earth. She wasn't a firm believer in Heaven or Hell or any form of life after death, but if she listened to people who did, then there was no place hotter than Hell. She'd discovered, however, that they were wrong. She was pretty sure that there was no place hotter than that which she currently inhabited, and, as far as she knew, that place wasn't Hell. She wasn't dead. Yet. Based on the fire that was slowly consuming her body and the wall of stuff blocking her lungs, death wasn't far away, but she wasn't there yet.<p>

She wanted to say something to convey that she was melting in her own personal inferno, but her throat didn't seem to be working. It was like there was some kind of barrier blocking the air from reaching her vocal cords, so that all she could do was communicate silently, which was useless. Last time she had checked, Owen wasn't a mind reader, so there was no way he would be able to understand her silent pleas. All she could do was lie in the inferno silently and hope that Owen would catch on.

She wished she could go back to sleep. She wasn't exactly sure if she was awake; perhaps more like semi-conscious, given the way the world blurred in front of her eyes and occasionally disappeared completely, but the peaceful oblivion granted by sleep was definitely something she missed.

Another thing she wished for was Owen. When he'd come to bed with her and taken her in his arms, all her worries had melted away. She'd realized there were many sides to him: the focused, commanding professional who ran Seattle Grace's trauma department; the fiery-tempered man who had slammed her against the wall outside Joe's and kissed her with such fury that she could do nothing but stand there, shocked; the passionate yet hesitant man who kissed her senseless in the boiler room and incited in her a terrifying passion; and, most recently, the soft, gentle man who held her when she asked and made her feel safer tan she had in a long time. He was gone now, running around the trailer doing a million and one things, and she wanted more than anything to tell him to stop, but her voice wasn't working.

Hands were touching her, brushing the hair out of her face. Owen. He seemed to do that a lot, the whole pushing-the-hair-off-her-face thing. She tried to focus on his face, but she couldn't get a clear picture; everything was just too blurry. It was like trying to look through a camera lens covered in fingerprints.

There were words too, words tat she had to struggle to process and understand. "Hey." Owen's voice was soft, like a balm amid the burning discomfort. "I'm going to put some cooling packs on you, okay Cristina? This is going to be cold, but we need to bring your fever down."

So she was dying, dying of a fever. Of all the ways to go, and it had to be a fever that got her. It was ridiculous.

_You won't die. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere._ Owen's words rang in her ears. He had promised, and she knew that he was a man of his word. He would damn well try to keep her alive, but she wasn't so sure that there was anything he could do. She hoped he wouldn't feel too guilty about not being able to save her.

The irony of this situation was not lost on her. She'd been upset with Owen for staying outside so long talking to Shepherd because he might get the flu or something.

There was something cold touching her armpits. It was supposed to make her feel better, but Cristina wished it would just go away. The inferno was better than this. She'd thought, at first, that the cooling packs were soothing, but they quickly became uncomfortable. They were cold, so cold that they burned against her hot skin, not unlike that time the icicle had impaled her. That had been somewhat soothing for a fraction of a second too, until the real pain set in, and she stopped noticing the temperature.

Cristina closed her eyes. Focusing on the world—or trying to at least—was too hard. Sleep wasn't going to come to her; she was too feverish for that. Her only hope now was that the delirium would come and carry her away.

_She had slipped. It was that simple. She'd been storming off into the hospital, all pissed at Meredith for ranting about her latest problem with McDreamy, and had slipped on a patch of unseen ice outside the front doors. And then, while Meredith had been laughing at her and saying that this was karma coming back to bite her ass for having been so unsupportive, an icicle had fallen from the overhang and impaled her. _

_ She'd been impaled by and icicle. The thought was so ridiculously absurd that Cristina would have been laughing had she not been gasping for breath. It was surprisingly painful, though not enough to cause her to hyperventilate—that was more likely caused by the shock at being impaled by an icicle. _

_ She could feel it between her splayed fingers. It was cold, and slick, like the blood that was beginning to stain the front of her scrubs. It was lodged in her side, between her ribs from the looks of it, and she was pretty sure that there was no internal bleeding or lasting damage, but they'd need an X-Ray to be sure. Meredith had run off to get a gurney, and Cristina could only hope that she would hurry up. She didn't want to spend another second lying on the ground outside the hospital where anyone could see her, gasping like she'd just run a marathon, with an icicle sticking out of her chest. It was humiliating. _

_ The endless blackness peppered with a handful of stars and the occasional airplane that stretched above her head like a giant canopy disappeared and a head appeared to take its place. Amid her shock, Cristina realized with mute horror who it was: the ginger-haired army officer who'd trached that guy with a pen in the field and had stapled his gaping leg wound shut himself. While she was extremely impressed by his high pain threshold and his fearless improvisational skills in the field, he was honestly the last person that she wanted to find her in this state. The way he grinned when he saw her and said, "A damsel in distress," in a tone that fully indicated he was going to play the hero only made her humiliation worse._

_ But when he picked her up in his arms, she had to admit that she felt safe. She may still have been in pain and gasping like a fish out of water, but she knew, underneath all the panic and the embarrassment at getting impaled by an icicle and then discovered by a guy she thought was very kick-ass and also kind of sexy, that nothing worse was going to happen to her. These arms were going to keep her safe. _

_ It didn't take him long to get her upstairs to an exam room. He may have been a newcomer here, but this guy seemed to know his way around the hospital pretty well already. He lay her down on the exam room bed with the utmost care, as if she were made of glass, and then moved away. For a moment, she wanted to stretch out her arms and call him back to her, already missing the security of his arms, but the moment was gone as quickly as it came._

_ "Put her on a monitor, order a portable chest X-Ray." Meredith must have found them somehow, because her voice was here, issuing commands with the brisk efficiency of someone far more superior than a second-year resident, which made Cristina assume that she was issuing her commands to the interns. Great. Because they were so capable of looking after Cristina properly. _

_ "I'm going to cut your top off." Meredith face loomed above Cristina's for a moment, and then disappeared, presumably because she had gone to get something._

_ The momentary panic at the thought of having her top cut off in front of all the interns and Dr Sexy Army Guy, if he was still here, spurred Cristina into action. "It's between my ninth and tenth intercostals spaces, there's no hemo or pneumothorax, my vitals are stable, just pull it out," she hissed at Meredith desperately. She didn't want to be subjected to any further embarrassment tonight. _

_ "I wouldn't." The deep, baritone voice rang out to Cristina's left, and she turned her head sharply. Her saviour was standing above her, expertly wielding a stethoscope and looking at her with a most serious expression. _

_ "Ah—I—Mind your own business!" Cristina was grateful that he'd saved her life, but that didn't mean she wanted him here, making her life more miserable. _

_ "Who is this guy?" Meredith snapped, suddenly realizing she wasn't the only one tending to Cristina. He didn't answer, but backed off slightly, glancing warily in Meredith's direction. _

_ Cristina sighed. "Just take it out. Please. I already screwed up in front of the Chief once, I can't—I messed up a suture, and now he's looking at me like I'm number twelve! Mer, please, no one gets to see me like this, okay?" The last thing she wanted was word getting out that Cristina Yang, hard core future cardio god had been impaled by an _icicle_. _

_ No sooner were the words out of her mouth, the door to the room flew open and the Chief barged in, looking furious. "Yang—What the hell happened?"_

_ Cristina sank back against the pillows, hoping that the ground would open her up and swallow her whole. This day had just gone from bad to worse. _

_ "Get her on a monitor and order a portable chest—"_

_ "I did," Meredith interrupted hastily, taking Cristina's vitals. _

_ "Did you check her respiratory function?" The Chief was in full doctor mode now, but Cristina could tell that he was still pissed. She knew exactly how he felt. They'd both been having exceptionally crappy days and this...well this was just the icing on the cake. _

_ "I did!" Cristina cried in exasperation, having recovered from her moment of horror. She was tired of sitting here with everyone fussing over her and bickering about treatment options when they could just pull the damn thing out. "See? Breath sounds clear and equal." She took a deep breath to illustrate her point._

_ "You, be quiet," the Chief snapped, obviously not interested in anything Cristina had to say. Turning to Meredith, he continued: "What would you advise as a course of treatment?"_

_ "I think we should leave it in until we get the chest X-Ray and the CT back," Meredith replied calmly._

_ "I'm fine," Cristina hissed, trying to ignore the sting of betrayal. Meredith was supposed to be on her side, not the Chief's._

_ "But what about infection?" Meredith continued, ignoring Cristina. "This thing is definitely melting dirty roof-water into her body."_

_ "Which is why we should pull it out!" Cristina exploded, unable to keep quiet any longer while they analyzed her like some invalided patient. There was no lasting damage, pulling it out now wasn't going to kill her. It probably wasn't going to do anything. _

_ "Leave it right where it is," Dr Sexy Army Guy snapped, obviously beginning to get irritated himself. Cristina turned to him, startled; in all the excitement, she'd completely forgotten he was there. "If you get stabbed in the chest and you're lucky enough to still be breathing, you leave the knife in, at least until you figure out what's going on inside. Leave it in," he insisted, as Cristina reached to grab the icicle._

_ "Take it out!" God, why was everyone being so ridiculous?_

_ "Leave it in!" The Chief snarled. "And since you know so much, you can teach your interns how to treat you. This is a good opportunity to get back to the basics."_

_ "But I need to check on Vincent Canor," Cristina protested, in a last ditch attempt to get herself out of here and not be subjected to further humiliation. _

_The Chief frowned, turning to Meredith. "Grey, Vincent Canor is your responsibility now, but bear in mind that he is _my_ patient, and I'm not about to lose another trauma case today. Keep that man alive." He glared at Meredith, as if to emphasize the importance of Vincent Canor's life. "Can I have a word with you, Major Hunt?"_

So that was his name, _Cristina thought as Hunt followed the Chief out of the room. _Major Hunt._ It was kind of sexy, but she really wished he had taken her side on this one. He was the macho trauma guy who'd performed and emergency tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen because that was all he had in his pockets. He should be all for pulling the icicle out, not leaving it in. _

_With a sigh, Cristina leaned back against her pillows. It looked like she was going to have to try and tech her interns—try being the operative word—how to treat her. It was going to be beyond embarrassing, and she had the feeling that there would be no sexy army surgeon to save her this time._

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><p><strong>AN: So this chapter was a little longer than some of the other ones, but that seems fitting, seeing as it's been a while since you guys have had anything to read. Don't forget to leave a review!**


	8. Opposites Attract

**A/N: So I said I was going to try and update weekly, and then I realized that I had a class last week, and didn't get any writing done at all. I am going to try to have the next chapter up by next Tuesday, but, again, no promises. I haven't written it yet, but I have an idea of what's going to happen. This is like the midway point, so things are going to start getting better from here on in. The ending to this chapter is also kind of bad, but I felt bad for not updating in so long, so forgive me.**

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><p>Had this been Cristina's trailer, Owen wouldn't be having these problems. Cristina's trailer would be like a mini-OR; she'd probably even have surgical instruments pilfered from the hospital and a cupboard full of sterile drapes. He'd have no trouble starting an IV to give her fluids, or placing cooling pads to bring down her fever. He'd probably have the whole thing under control in a few hours.<p>

Unfortunately, this wasn't Cristina's trailer, and was severely lacking when it came to materials. He had been forced to fill freezer bags with snow to make cooling packs, but handling the fluids had been a little bit more difficult. Since there was nothing with which to start an IV—not that Owen hadn't looked; he'd spent a good twenty minutes fishing around for something, anything, that could be used as an IV with no success—he was forced to make Cristina consume fluids by hand, a process that was both time-consuming and painstaking for both of them. Her fever—which was now 104.3º—was making her delirious, and so taking water was the least of her problems. Owen practically had to force her every time, tipping the glass to the point where Cristina was practically choking on the water before she would swallow it on her own. He tried talking to her as he did it, encouraging her, but he was pretty sure that in her delirium, she couldn't hear him or understand what he was saying.

The fever was beginning to worry him. Her temperature was still rising, to a point where, if it got any higher, it might end up being fatal. Owen had tried everything: the cooling packs, the fluids, stripping Cristina out of every non-essential bit of clothing, while not leaving her too exposed to the cold interior of the trailer, but nothing seemed to be working. Pretty soon, things were going to be out of his control.

"One more sip," he coaxed, pushing a few soaked strands of hair away from her face, a gesture that had become habit over the last six hours. His eyelids were beginning to burn from lack of sleep and Cristina's face was occasionally a fuzzy blur before his eyes, but he willed himself to stay awake. He couldn't afford to be sleeping right now. The coffee was going to have to be enough to keep him going. "You need to drink a little more, Cristina." He tried to push the cup closer to her mouth, so that the rim was brushing her lips, but she turned her head away, squeezing her eyes shut as if that would somehow make it all go away. The movement surprised him; he hadn't anticipated that she would be coherent enough to realize that he wanted her to take the water. Hope sprang up in his chest as he realized that this could mean she was getting better, that the fever was lessening.

"Take it out," she mumbled. "Just take it out."

Owen sighed, abandoning any hope that she was getting better. She had no idea what he was doing. Setting aside the cup—because there was no way he was going to watch Cristina choke and gag if he didn't have to—he rubbed his eyes, hoping that the exhaustion would somehow disappear. He reckoned he had slept about five hours or so before Cristina's elevated body temperature woke him, and next to none the night before. His body was running on fumes, every fibre craving sleep. Normally, the exhaustion would be easily combatable. He was used to functioning on little or no sleep for extended periods of time, but he'd softened a little since Iraq.

Teddy would laugh if she could see him now: being able to go for hours—sometimes even days—with no sleep—or with amounts so minimal you woke up feeling like you hadn't slept at all—had been an unspoken competition between them; whoever could go the longest was granted instant bragging rights. Owen had always won, but Teddy held her own.

Of all the people he'd lost or cut out of his life since Iraq, Teddy was the one he missed the most. She was his best friend, and probably the only person who really knew him and understood what it was like to be him. She knew about all the hardships and the messiness in his life: about Beth, and Dan, and his mother. She'd know exactly what do now. She'd be able to take a step back and assess the situation critically, without any kind of emotional attachment like that which had been clouding his judgment ever since he'd arrived at this damn trailer.

_There_ was another thing he didn't understand: this attachment to Cristina. She wasn't what you would call his type: Teddy was more his type, or Beth. Neither of them really had anything in common; he was quiet, professional, and reserved, with aspirations of a family to share his life with, while she was blunt, competitive, stubborn, and not one for long-term commitments. He was a leader, the kind who was more than willing to go down with his ship—after making sure that everyone else was saved of course—while she refused to let anything get in the way of her goals. They weren't the type of people who would be compatible together personality-wise, and yet they were more alike than people thought. They were both survivors, both capable of adapting to all the hardships life had thrown their way. Not to mention there was something about her that had pulled him in right from the first time they met...

_She was intriguing. He had barely spent any time with her, and already, he could tell that the petite Asian—whose name he couldn't remember, though he wasn't sure if he'd even heard it—was intense and dedicated to surgery. She had a no-nonsense attitude, and an extreme amount of focus when she was working. The way she had chased him down when he was trying to go check on the others involved in the car accident and forced him into an exam room so she could treat his leg had shown him that. Even now, as she was swabbing his leg with disinfectant and getting ready to suture it up again, she was all business, saying nothing, mind on the task at hand. There was something about the way that she worked that was incredibly hot..._

_ "Okay." Her voice was quiet; she was speaking more to herself than any one else. As Owen watched, she got up and crossed the room to the cupboards, looking for some sutures. She was going to stitch him up, which would take forever. Owen didn't have forever. He had patients to check on. Without another thought, he reached for the staple gun on the instrument tray beside him and aligned it with his leg wound. _

_ She didn't turn around when the first staple went in, nor at the grunt of pain that went with it. Further proof of her focus, it seemed. She turned of her own volition, having found whatever it was she was searching for. "Your—" she began, breaking off when she saw Owen shooting the second staple into his leg. "Wow." There was no doubting that she was impressed and also somewhat shocked by his actions, which was no surprise. Surprising people was all he'd been doing this evening. "Uh, you're not numbed."_

"_So?" It was painful, but not unbearable pain, and certainly not something Owen couldn't deal with. There was no need to waste anesthesia on something as simple as this. He'd seen men go through much worse with nothing to numb the pain. _

_She was staring at him, completely at a loss for words. It made him feel strangely proud, that he could cause this unflappable, hard-core resident to be completely speechless. "So, uh—ow!" she exclaimed as yet another staple went in. _

_Had he not been focused on the task at hand, Owen might have laughed. Of all the things she could come up with, the best she could do was 'ow'. It was so obvious that she had no idea what to do in this situation, and, at the same time, she seemed impressed at the way he was handling the pain._

_Owen sighed, realizing that he had gotten to the point where he couldn't aim the gun himself anymore without missing the wound entirely. "I can't get an angle on these. Could you..." he trailed off, holding the gun out like a peace offering. The meaning behind it was clear: _I need your help.

_She stared at him for a moment, clearly unsure how to react. Then she shook her head, laughter bubbling up from somewhere deep within her as she, too, realized the comic absurdity of the situation. "Okay," she said, sitting down on the stool again and taking the gun from Owen. She bent down, focused look taking over her face again, aimed, and fired. The pain—which he had momentarily forgotten while admiring the way her laughter danced in her eyes—was sharper this time, causing him to grunt and shut his eyes briefly. Maybe it was because of this strangely bewitching resident who had been assigned to treat him, or maybe it was because it was less painful when you were treating yourself, but, whatever the reason, he needed to just deal with it. _

_She looked up at his reaction, and their eyes locked for a moment. Hers were questioning:_ is this okay_, they seemed to be saying. It was touching that she was making sure he was all right, but, at the same time, she was wasting time doing so. He was fine. Better to just get this over with. He gestured impatiently with his hand, indicating that she could keep going, and she did, though there was a small, secretive smile on her face, the kind that made him want to know exactly what she was thinking. It looked like she might be trying not to laugh, and Owen could feel a similar smile, albeit marred by pain, spreading across his own face. He didn't even know this woman, and yet, there was some kind of connection between them, a spark of some kind. _

"_Thank you," he said when she finished, still unable to wipe that smile off his face. He stood up slowly, testing his leg. It was fine, and from the looks of it, she had done a fine job. An excellent one, actually. _

_She stood, too, so that she was inches away from him. "Don't mention it." Her voice was calm, but there was a sparkle in her eyes that indicated something more than her usual professionalism, a sparkle that made Owen want more too. She was so close, close enough that if he leaned in just another inch he could..._

"_Can I ask you something?" _

_The sound of another voice made both of them start and turn towards the door. Another resident—longhaired, Hispanic, and definitely attractive, though not nearly as attractive as the resident beside him—had entered the room, looking decidedly uncomfortable. _

"_I, uh, what?" The obvious confusion and distraction in the younger resident's voice made a smile flit across Owen's face. It was nice to know that he wasn't the only one who was feeling something. _

"_Um, him, actually," the resident replied, glancing pointedly at Owen. _

_There was a brief, awkward silence before she spoke. "Oh, uh, sure. I've got surgery," she added, as if she had only just remembered. _

_Owen nodded, trying to stop all of the words that were threatening to spill out of his mouth to try and convince her to stay. The way she sauntered out of the room, that smug little grin plastered on her face, there was no way she didn't know what effect she had on him._

_He couldn't get her out of his head for the rest of the night, no matter how hard he tried. She was always there in the back of his mind, that sexy little smile plastered on her face. Every time he turned the corner, he'd hoped that she would be there, even though he'd known she was in surgery._

_ He couldn't understand it. She wasn't the kind of girl he'd ever expect to fall for, and certainly not so quickly. He was a man known for his level head and his professionalism, and yet all he had been able to think about the whole time she was treating his leg wound was how much he wanted to kiss her. He didn't even know her name, let alone whether or not she had a boyfriend, and still, the urge to kiss her had been almost overpowering. _

_ He hadn't seen her again after that, and he'd given up all hope that he would. Fate, however, seemed to have a different opinion: he'd barely made it out the front doors of the hospital when, lo and behold, there she was, lying on the ground with an icicle sticking out of her side. Had she not been so obviously in shock, had fear for her well being not immediately filled his chest, he would have laughed. In all of his years as a trauma surgeon—Iraq included—he had never seen an injury so ridiculous. It was obviously an accident; the icicle must have fallen from the overhang above, but that still didn't explain what she was doing on the ground in the first place. He was tempted to ask her, but she didn't seem in the right state of mind to hold a conversation with. _

_ Owen had intended on taking her to a quiet room, treating her wound, and going on his way. It was the least he could do to repay her for helping him with his leg, and it was an excuse to spend more time alone with her. His plan never came into fruition, though; he ran into another one of the residents in the hallway, one who had been with Cristina at the time of the accident, and had been directed to an exam room. From there, things had gotten out of his hands; with interns and nurses swarming everywhere, following the directions of the other resident—who's name, he learned, was Meredith Grey—and the Chief arriving not long after that, there wasn't much that Owen had been able to do. He'd been ushered out shortly thereafter—the Chief wanted to talk to him about freezing one of their patients with a devastating spinal injury in the hopes of regaining feeling to his legs—and he was only just able to sneak back and check on her now. She probably wasn't going to be very happy about having been left at the mercy of her interns; Owen got the feeling that the relationship between them was strained at best. _

_ Stealing a glance around to make sure that no one was watching—and nearly colliding with the Chief as he did so—Owen slipped into Cristina's room—another thing he had learned since discovering her outside: her name. She was lying on the bed, scrubs swapped for a hospital gown, with a most miserable expression on her face. The night had obviously gone downhill for her since he'd first seen her. _

_ "How's your interns?" he asked conversationally, while snapping on a pair of gloves and glancing out the windows to make sure that no one was watching. He was almost positive he wasn't supposed to be in here—and he certainly wasn't supposed to be treating a patient—and the last thing he wanted was to get caught. The doctors here were already wary enough of him as it was. _

_ "Unh," Cristina groaned in response, turning away from him. Not well, obviously. He wasn't surprised; he'd seen them all leave the room looking positively terrified. Cristina was, unsurprisingly, a tough resident._

_ "They seemed pretty scared of you," he continued, moving over to examine the wound. It was looking better; in fact, he could probably remove the icicle safely. Her films had all come back clean—another thing he wasn't supposed to know, but they had been left on the wall in the corner of the room, so he figured it was fair game—so pulling it out now wasn't going to do any harm, and it would get rid of some of the embarrassment. _

"_I am not scary," she protested indignantly, eyes flashing. Owen couldn't help the smile that was spreading across his face. She was so cute when she was angry. He leaned closer to her, trying to resist the urge to chuckle at the reaction he knew she was going to have to his proximity and to the plan rapidly forming in the back of his mind. _

"_W-What are you doing?" The uncertainty in her voice was clear; she seemed both unsure of his intentions and afraid of what he might do. Owen didn't reply, tilting his head to the side instead and gazing at her, drinking in the lines and sharp features of her face. There was fear burning in her eyes, and at the same time, desire; she realized what he was going to do, and he knew that if he kissed her now, he'd be met with no resistance. The prospect was sorely tempting, and he leaned in a little closer, just to tantalize her, before yanking the icicle out of her side. She gasped as if re-emerging from the water after being submerged for a long time, and grasped Owen's forearm so hard that he had to suck in a small breath himself. Hastily, he slipped his free hand over top of the wound and began to massage it gently. _

"_Uh, that's my icicle!" she gasped in a strangled voice, staring at the piece of ice in his hand with something akin to wonder. _

"_Yeah," Owen whispered, unable to put more distance in between them, even though he knew that was the responsible thing to do. He was painfully aware that her hand was still gripping his arm—small as it was, it gripped with a surprising amount of force—and that her eyes were now locked with his, making it impossible to look away. _

"_You took out my icicle?" It seemed as though she was asking confirmation, like she couldn't believe her eyes. Owen said nothing—words seemed to have failed him entirely—but it didn't matter; Cristina's mind moved on, frowning slightly as she processed this information. "I didn't give you permission to take it out."_

_He very nearly failed to catch the burst of laughter before it slipped out. He had just pulled out the icicle—the icicle that, an hour ago, she had been begging to have removed—and all she could say was that she hadn't given him permission to take it out? "So?" he asked, repeating his words from earlier when she had protested the fact that he was treating his leg without any pain medication. _

_Cristina gasped as he began to apply a little bit more pressure to the wound, eyes never leaving his face. Watching her was mesmerizing, so much so that Owen wasn't even aware that Meredith had entered the room until she spoke._

"_Cristina?"_

_Meredith stood at the foot of the bed, fiddling with her watchband. She looked like she had something important to say, but Owen had no idea what it was. _

"_He died." How Cristina knew without being told was beyond him. _

_Meredith just nodded. "I thought you should know," she said quietly, shooting Owen a strange look before heading to the door. _

"_Mer?"_

_Meredith froze, hand on the doorknob. _

"_It'll be okay. There was nothing more you could have done." Cristina's voice was soothing; it's obvious that she and Meredith are close. _

"_Right." Meredith didn't look convinced, but she left the room before Cristina could say anything else. _

**Don't forget to leave a review! **


	9. Dilemma

**A/N: I actually updated on time this week! Very proud of myself. This is a good chapter too. Cristina is officially out of the woods, so there's a lot more banter between her and Owen to look forward to. **

**Just a note: I'm going camping next week and won't have a computer. I can write the update while I'm gone, but I won't be able to post it until I get back. I'll make it extra good just to make up for it.**

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><p>There was a wall in her lungs.<p>

Cristina wasn't sure what kind of illness she had fallen victim to, but there were two things she was certain of: 1) it was going away—if it wasn't gone already—and 2) whatever illness it was, it had left a barricade of stuff in her lungs, making every breath come out as a phlegm-y rasp. It was disgusting.

She couldn't remember much of what had happened in the last however many hours. There had been something forced down her throat on several occasions, and she could have sworn Owen's voice had been there, though she wasn't sure it had been real or a bi-product of her trip down memory lane. Quite a bit of time must have passed, though, because the sun was beginning to filter through the windows of the trailer. Her last memories of being awake and incensed by fever had taken place when it was dark outside, but she had no idea if it was the next morning or if several days had passed. She wanted to ask Owen because she was sure he'd know, but he was sprawled on the bed beside her, sleeping with abandon.

There was a mostly-full glass of water on the nightstand beside the bed, tempting her parched throat mercilessly. Cristina tried to reach for it, but her limbs felt like Jell-O and didn't seem to be able to support her body weight long enough for her to reach over Owen's prone figure and grab it. She shifted her weight one more time, desperately trying to reach that damn glass, and, for a moment, it seemed as if her muscles would indeed support her until Owen decided to shift in his sleep. The movement of the mattress caused Cristina to wobble precariously before tumbling back onto the mattress again. Cursing, she lay back, momentarily spent, and tried to plan her next move. She needed something to drink before the fire in the back of her throat drove her crazy, and something had to be done about the wall blocking her lungs. There was no way she was going to be able to go to work tomorrow gasping the way she was. She also needed more clothes. Owen, in an attempt to soothe her raging fever perhaps, had removed most of her clothes, so that all she wore was a cotton tank top and a pair of loose-fitting leggings that definitely belonged to Meredith. Cristina was momentarily mortified; she wouldn't be caught dead in leggings, especially not in front of Owen Hunt. Then again, she would normally let anyone see her sick either.

There had to be more clothes somewhere. Owen wouldn't have gotten rid of the clothes he had taken off her, so it was simply a matter of finding them, which, given the current strength of her muscles, was easier said than done. She deliberated waking Owen up, but she knew that he was probably completely worn out from looking after her and decided against it. Besides, she'd spent too much time being at the mercy of someone other than herself, much to her embarrassment. She'd do this on her own, even if it killed her.

She rolled over to one side—something that took much more effort than it should—and immediately felt something wet and cold pressing against her stomach. Gasping, Cristina flopped onto her back again, fingers probing the mattress for the offending object. It turned out to be a freezer bag, filled about halfway with water and the last few remnants of the snow that it had once been. For a moment, she looked at it, perplexed, trying to fathom exactly how it came to end up in the bed. What would either of them need a bag of snow for? Especially when it was so..._cold_. Of course. Owen must have been using them like cooling packs to try and bring down her fever. There was no doubt that man was resourceful and was no stranger to treating people with whatever limited supplies he had available. It made Cristina glad that he was the one she'd been stuck with and not any of the other residents, who probably wouldn't have known what to do in this situation.

_In the field, you do what you can; you work with what you have. It's not about being the best; it's about saving lives. _

Cristina could appreciate Owen's words much more now than she had the night they had met. Then, she'd been impressed by his resourcefulness—the memory of the way he'd trached that guy with a ballpoint still fresh in her mind—but she'd always thought that sort of stuff happened only really happened in the military. It made for great stories, but she'd never really realized how imperative it was that every doctor knew how to make use of whatever they have available to treat their patients because they weren't always going to have all the right tools. If she'd been stuck out here with any of the other residents, she may very well have died, simply because they wouldn't necessarily have known how to treat her in such a remote setting. She hated trauma surgery because it was quick and dirty, lacking the finesse of braches like cardiothoracics and neuro, but she was grateful for the resourcefulness trauma taught you.

Beside her, Owen flopped restlessly. He'd never struck her as the kind of person that would move around a lot in his sleep; on the contrary, he seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn't move at all, and yet here he was, tossing and turning beside her as if he was being tossed back and forth like a hot potato. She wondered briefly if there might be something wrong, but she dismissed it quickly. Owen was fine. He was probably just a restless sleeper.

Brushing all thoughts of Owen aside, Cristina focused on her priority: finding more clothes. The sweat had dried on her skin, leaving her covered in goosebumps and shivering. If she didn't find clothes soon, she could get hypothermia, and then she'd be back to square one, which was not acceptable. Her shift started at eight tomorrow, and she wasn't going to miss it, no matter what the weather was doing.

The easiest solution to the problem was to wake Owen, but she was loath to ask for help, and besides, at the rate he was moving around, trying to wake him was potentially hazardous. Her muscles seemed to have decided to stage a rebellion against her and refused to do what she wanted them to—namely hold herself up—which made getting up out of bed to find more clothes an impossibility.

Maybe, she decided, the answer wasn't getting more—though she couldn't wait to be rid of Meredith's leggings—but using what she had around her. Owen had been able to treat her with what he had in the trailer; surely she could keep herself warm with what she had in the bed. After all, she was surrounded by blankets—only Owen seemed to be sleeping on most of them. All she had to do was get them out from underneath him, and she'd be okay. She'd survive this. Compared to the forest, this was easy.

_You only survived the forest because Owen came and found you._ She could picture Meredith's scathing expression. _You wanted to fall asleep, remember? Without him, you would have died. _

_Shut up,_ Cristina snapped. The last thing she needed right now was Meredith invading her mind. Things were bad enough as they were. She needed to concentrate on the task at hand.

The first thing to do was find all those freezer bags. It took Cristina a while the only way she could look for them was by patting the mattress in the vain hope of stumbling across them—but eventually, they had all been relocated to the floor. She was incredibly glad that Owen was asleep; the process had been extremely embarrassing and not one that she ever wanted anyone else to witness. He wouldn't view her as a hard-core cardio god if he saw what she had been reduced to now.

The next thing was to move the remaining blankets onto herself. If she were completely cocooned under all of them, then hopefully, she'd warm up.

She tried to roll over in order to better see the blankets she had to pull out from under Owen, but stopped as her stomach churned queasily. She obviously hadn't completely combated the illness. She tried reaching blindly for them instead, but missed and slapped Owen across the face, jolting him awake. Feeling instantly guilty and embarrassed, she jerked her hand back, praying that he hadn't noticed.

He sat bolt upright, instantly tense and alert—definitely a result of Iraq, she decided—though he relaxed when he saw she was awake.

"Hey," he said gently. "How are you feeling?"

_Better,_ she wanted to say, but her throat was raw and her lungs were barricaded, so all that came out was a raspy, choking sound. _Great,_ she thought to herself bitterly. _As if things couldn't get any more embarrassing. First you slap him, and then you start choking. Really hot, Cristina._

_It could be worse, you know. _She could picture Meredith trying to reassure her, while fighting the urge to laugh. _You could have vomited all over him._

If Owen thought it was funny, he didn't comment. Instead, he rolled over, grabbing the glass of water off the nightstand and handing it to her. She couldn't help feeling jealous of how easy and fluid his movements were; she was painfully aware of how much effort it had taken her to try and reach that glass earlier.

She tried to sit up by herself so that she could take a drink without choking, and ended up needing to be propped up by Owen—much to her further embarrassment. She owed Owen so much it wasn't even funny.

The water was heaven, temporarily soothing the ache in her throat, but doing nothing for the flood gumming up her lungs.

"Better?" Owen asked when she had finished.

She nodded. "Sorry for waking you." Her voice came out raspy and her throat ached with each word.

"It's fine," he said softly.

_No it's not,_ she wanted to say, but she didn't want to start a fight. Her throat couldn't take that kind of abuse. "How bad?" she asked instead.

Owen sighed, rubbing his face. She could now see the dark shadows underneath them, proof of lots of struggle and little sleep. "Your fever went up to about 104.4"

Cristina didn't know what to say. 104.4? That was crazy. A little higher and she could have been at risk of multi-system organ failure. "Wow,'" she mumbled.

"Yeah." Owen laughed shakily.

There was a brief, awkward silence, punctuated by the sound of Cristina's raspy breaths. Owen knew that congestion was a symptom and after affect of pneumonia, but he still couldn't help being concerned. They were going straight to the hospital as soon as the weather cleared up so that she could get a proper check-up. He'd do it himself if he had to—she wasn't going to want any one else to know.

"Thanks for taking care of me," she said finally. Her voice was quiet; he knew she hated having other people do things for her.

He wanted to tell her that she didn't have to thank him, that he'd taken care of her for purely selfish reasons because he didn't want to lose her, but he was sure that was much more than she wanted to know. "It wasn't like I was going to let you die," was what came out instead.

She laughed—though it came out more like a phlegm-y bark—before sobering. "That's not what I meant. You took care of me without having any stuff, you know? You had to just use all this"—she waved a hand vaguely around the trailer in an attempt to indicate what 'all this' was and Owen bit back a smile—"and most of the other residents I know—and possibly even some of the attendings—wouldn't have known what to do."

"Well, I suppose it's a good thing I refused to let you send me away then, isn't it?" he said, unable to pass up an opportunity to tease her. Now that the crisis had passed, he had a lot of nervous tension he needed to get rid of.

"You know what? You can just—Shut up!" Cristina stammered. "I don't need you badgering me all the time. I'm sick. I should be resting!"

Owen chuckled. "You just don't want to admit I'm right, do you? You just can't accept that you were wrong." He was going to enjoy this.

"I wasn't—You interrupted me! I was out here all by myself expecting to have a nice evening to relax and sort out everything going on in my head and then you just appeared—You know, it could have been worse," she added with a small smile. "I could have made you sleep in the truck."

"You—" he shook his head, not knowing what to say. She would have made him sleep in his _truck_? "Do you have any idea how cold it was out there?"

"Uh, yeah. I was out there, remember? But I didn't know that at the time," she said quickly, as if that made it any more excusable.

_Unbelievable. Of course the woman I happen to have an insane, inexplicable attraction to would make me sleep in my truck in the middle of a blizzard. _

"I wasn't _serious_." She laughed feebly at the expression on his face. It sounded more like a laugh this time and not like she was dying. "I'm not that crazy."

"But you are crazy." Owen grinned and reached over to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. _And that's one of the reasons I love you._

He wanted to tell her. The words were on the tip of his tongue every time he saw her. _I love you. I love you. _He couldn't tell her though, because he knew she would run away if he did. He knew she was attracted to him, but he still wasn't sure if that attraction was purely physical or if there was something deeper to it. He hadn't even known himself until recently. He'd spent all this time trying to control it, trying to curb this wild passion he felt for her because it was so unfair to drag her into the mess that was his life, telling himself it was too soon after Beth and Teddy. After she'd kissed him in the boiler room, he'd known that there was something more to this attraction, but he hadn't really known the extent of it until he'd seen her lying there in the forest. The fear that had gripped him at the thought of her dying, the urge he felt to take care of her, to ease her pain, that had been a clear indication. When he'd woken up this morning—after he'd gotten over that instant reaction that he was under attack—he just knew. He loved her and he wanted to be a part of her life in the future. It was that simple. Cristina, of course, wouldn't see it that way, which was why he couldn't say anything. He'd play it her way for a while.

"You know, you do that a lot."

Cristina's voice jerked him back to reality. "What?"

"The whole hair thing. You do it a lot. Well, you've done it a lot recently," she amended, realizing the error in her words.

"Oh." Owen wasn't sure whether or not this was a good thing; should he apologize? "Well, you've got a lot of hair," he said, and immediately wished he could take the words back. _You've got a lot of hair? That's the best you can come up with?_

Cristina smothered a small smile. She seemed to find his words amusing. "That's a very acute observation, Dr Hunt."

Embarrassed, he looked away, hoping to hide the fact that his cheeks were flushing. "Do you need anything? Some water, or maybe something to eat? You haven't had anything substantial in a while."

If Cristina realized what he was doing, she didn't let on. "I don't thin eating anything is a good idea right now. I'm not sure I'd be able to keep it down."

He couldn't stop the concern that rose in his stomach. "You feel nauseous?" _Please don't be getting sick again. _

"I'm fine," she said, a little too quickly for his liking. "My stomach is just a little unsettled. That's all."

Owen frowned. After the day and a half he had spent tending to Cristina, he wasn't going to take any chances. "I really need to get you to the hospital," he muttered to himself, getting up off the bed.

"What? No you don't!" Cristina exclaimed. "I'm fine! Seriously, I'm just recovering from—" she broke off as a hacking cough wracked her frame.

"You're not fine," he said firmly, coming back to sit beside her and patting her back in an effort to help her cough. "You need proper medication, Cristina, and fluids." He hated that she was so stubborn. He was trying to help her. He was just trying to make sure she was okay. "No one needs to know. We can be in and out, just say that you forgot something at work, but we have to go. Okay?"

Cristina shook her head, still not able to talk properly because of the coughs. "Not...going..." she croaked. "Don't...need..."

"This is not up for discussion." He wasn't going to put himself through what he had gone through last night again. That wasn't fair to him or to her. "You need help, Cristina, and I can't give it to you."

The coughing fit had finally subsided. Cristina opened her mouth to try and talk and then broke off gasping. She gestured frantically with one hand, and Owen, understanding what he meant, snatched them empty glass of water off the nightstand and filled it at the sink. She drank it greedily, and took a few deep breaths before speaking. "Fine."

"What?" Her response took Owen completely by surprise.

"Fine. You can go to the hospital."

"_I_ can go to the hospital? You're the one that needs to be seen, Cristina." This was ridiculous. He wasn't going to get anywhere with her. He shouldn't have ever given her the option in the first place.

"You were the one that said you didn't have adequate supplies to look after me. So go get the supplies." She looked at him like she thought he was an idiot for not having thought of that himself.

Owen sighed and ran a hand through his hair. God, she could be stubborn sometimes. "Cristina I really don't think—"

"You want me to get better right? This is going to help me get better."

"What if something happens while I'm gone? I can't—"

"I'll be fine. I'm feeling much better. Honestly," she added, seeing the look of disbelief on his face. "If something happens, I'll call an ambulance, okay?"

He deliberated for a long moment. There was no way in hell he'd get her to come to the hospital, so this was the best option they had. "Fine. But if something goes wrong—"

"I'll call 911 right away," she said wearily. "I know, Owen."

"Good. Now I don't know what the road conditions are like, or if I'll even be able to get the truck out of here, but I shouldn't be gone more than a couple of hours." _If I can even get there, that is._

She nodded. "Okay. So if you're not back after a couple hours..."

"Call. I'll have my cell."

Again, she nodded. "Okay."

There was a moment of silence, in which Owen considered the absolute craziness of what he was doing. In any other situation, he would have insisted on going to a hospital, but with Cristina...

"I'd better go see if I can start the truck."

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><p><strong>So Owen's off to Seattle Grace to get some supplies and Cristina is left to her own devices at the trailer. Until next time! <strong>


	10. Sparks Fly

**A/N: Sorry it took so long to update! I did absolutely no writing while I was camping, which set me way behind, and was then on vacation with my family in Hawaii, which put me behind some more. I also had to take a little bit of a break to figure out exactly where this was going to go, because I was starting to realize that I was just writing aimlessly, and the story was starting to go places I didn't want it to. Anyway, thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter (long ago as it was) and I've now got a pretty good idea where things are going to go, so everything should be back on track in terms of updating. **

**Happy reading, and don't forget to leave a review!**

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><p>When Owen opened the door, all he could see was white. From where he stood on the veranda, he couldn't even tell that they were in a forest, so thick was the snow coverage. In fact, Owen wasn't sure he'd ever seen so much snow in his life. It looked as if someone had taken one of those picturesque landscapes you saw on a Christmas card, and dumped several tons of snow on it. Anything that had been left out before—including Cristina's bike and his truck—were merely white lumps; the truck only distinguishable because one side mirror happened to have broken through the snow coverage.<p>

There was no way he was going anywhere. Even if he were by some miracle able to get the truck uncovered—though that task alone would likely take him all day—there was no way he'd be able to get it anywhere. There was simply too much snow coverage on the roads. They were stuck here until the ploughs came around and cleared them out.

As if to cement his resolve, the wind whistled through the clearing, piercing through Owen's leather jacket and pelting his face with snow at such a force that it stung his cheeks. _It isn't supposed to be this cold in Seattle,_ he thought, ramming his hands deeper into his pockets in a desperate attempt to warm them. _This kind of winter is supposed to be the kind that we experience in movies or by visiting other places where this kind of thing is routine. It's not supposed to happen _here. Still, he couldn't really complain about the weather _that_ much; it had, after all, given him two days of Cristina's undivided attention. _Hardly undivided,_ his subconscious snorted. _She was delirious most of the time._

_Still,_ he argued, _she's awake now, isn't she?_ There was plenty of opportunity for _something_ to arise.

He shouldn't. He knew that much. Involving himself with Cristina now was a bad idea. He was an emotional train-wreck, fraught with PTSD and nightmarish memories of people—friends, comrades, and enemies alike—being blown apart in front of his eyes. The last thing he should be doing right now is trying to start a relationship with someone—though he still wasn't sure if she was the kind of person who did relationships—and yet, somehow, he couldn't stay away, either. Derek had been right, she was like the finest brand of single malt, and she drew him to her like a moth was drawn to a flame, regardless of what his better judgement might be.

Granted, he hadn't come here looking for her. Fate, if you will, had brought them here together. He'd just have to wait and see what happened. He wouldn't try and start anything with her, but, well, if things happened, he wasn't about to say no either. The memory of their last encounter in the boiler room was still fresh in mind.

"Back so soon?" Cristina asked with mock seriousness, glancing up from her perch in the armchair as he re-entered the trailer, stamping his feet to dislodge the worst of the snow. "I thought you said you'd be gone at least a couple of hours."

"I'm not going anywhere," he replied, shaking some snow out of his hair. He sat down on the bench and unlaced his boot, pausing to dump some three inches of snow out of his boot. It scattered everywhere, like flour, haphazardly turning patches of floor space white. "The truck's completely buried. By the time I dug it out, you'd probably be on your way to work."

"Oh really?" she said dryly, setting aside Ellis' journal, even though she hadn't had enough time to even open it. It had taken all of her effort to make it to the damn chair, and she'd very nearly not made it. Not that she'd ever let Owen know that. "Well, what did you expect? In case you didn't notice, there was a freaking blizzard."

He said nothing, and Cristina couldn't help savouring the small victory. Being sick and taken care of by Owen had robbed her of all her sense of control and had left her feeling helpless, a feeling that she hated more than anything. Ever since her father had died, and she'd been forced to sit there, not able to do anything to save him, she had loathed the feeling that things were out of her control. It was why it had bothered her so much that the solo surgery had been taken from her: she'd just felt like she couldn't do anything. She'd deserved to be there, and there was nothing she could do to make that happen.

"What are you doing?"

Owen was staring at her incredulously, as if he couldn't understand what she was doing.

"I'm sitting." What did it look like she was doing?

"No, I mean why aren't you in bed? You should be resting, Cristina," he added gently.

"I am!" she protested, gesturing around at the chair she was lounging in and then snatching up Ellis' diary, as if to prove her point. "See? Resting."

Owen, however, did not look convinced. "How did you even get there?" he asked, looking from the bed to the chair and back again, unable to fathom how she had done it.

"I walked." Again, obvious.

He sighed, raking a hand through his hair in frustration and stalked into the kitchenette.

"Where are you going?" Cristina couldn't help thinking that he was being really childish about this. He was asking blatantly obvious questions and getting frustrated when she gave him equally obvious answers in return.

"To the kitchen," he replied curtly. _Two can play this game._

She was infuriating. He was asking her serious questions, questions that concerned her general health and well being, and, instead of giving him legitimate answers, she was smart-mouthing him. He loved her stubbornness, her competitiveness, and even her tendency to be snarky, blunt, and rude, but sometimes—like now—it made him crazy.

At the same time, however, he was impressed at her stubbornness. She was pretty weak after the draining bout of fever—pneumonia zapped just about everything you had—and yet she'd managed to get out of bed and across the trailer to the chair in the time he had been outside, an impressive feat considering she hadn't been able to prop herself up unaided earlier. She'd probably had to crawl. He still wasn't sure whether this made her incredibly determined or incredibly stupid.

She was a surgeon. She knew what pneumonia did to people, and she knew what was required of patients recovering from pneumonia. She knew she should be in bed, but, as Owen had discovered, Cristina only obeyed the rules so long as they suited her purposes. And she didn't really care what other people wanted her to do.

The kettle was still on the stove, its water now cooled. He'd completely forgotten about it in all the commotion, and now couldn't even remember why he'd boiled the water in the first place. "You really should be in bed," he said, moving the kettle off the stovetop. He knew that his words weren't going to change anything, but he felt the need to say them anyway.

Cristina rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to Ellis' diary, clearly uninterested in continuing the conversation. "I'm fine. I feel great. There's nothing—" She broke off, overcome by harsh, barking coughs that wracked her frame.

"—Wrong with you?" Owen finished, trying not to smile. He'd never seen her sick before, but he assumed that this was her usual M.O.: push herself to recover regardless of whether she was physically ready or not.

"I just need some Advil or something," she rasped, masterfully attempting to subdue the cough. "It's just a cough."

He wanted to remind her that the "cough" was following on the heels of a nearly life-threatening bout of pneumonia, but didn't, knowing it wasn't going to do any good. He'd just have to keep an eye on her himself. "At least let me make you some tea," he said, unable to resist saying something. "It'll make your throat feel better."

The expression on her face told him exactly what Cristina thought about _that_ suggestion. "I'm fine," she persisted stubbornly.

Owen shook his head, chuckling. "Thank God you're a surgeon. I'd feel bad for any doctor who had to look after you."

Cristina couldn't help smiling at this, remembering all too well the last time she had been a patient. "I expect Dr Bailey could tell you all about it."

The expression on Owen's face was priceless. She had been seized by a momentary panic after realizing what she'd said would force her to explain the circumstances—she'd had an ectopic pregnancy—which would lead to discussing Burke—someone she didn't want to talk about with Owen ever if she could avoid it—but it had dissipated when she saw his face: completely and utterly flabbergasted. If it were possible for jaws to literally hit the floor, his would be there.

The laughter began as a tiny bubble inside of her, one that she knew she should repress for politeness' sake—even though politeness was never something she'd given a damn about. Slowly, it got bigger, expanding to fill her chest cavity to the point that she thought she would burst if she didn't let a little out. She tried valiantly to hold it in one last time, before giving up and letting it explode out of her like air rushing out of a balloon.

It wasn't just his face she laughed at, but at everything that had happened in the last few days, from her having to watch Alex Karev, of all people, performing _her_ solo surgery and then getting drunk with Callie, to Owen showing up at the trailer and her getting pneumonia. Now that it was all over, she found the series of misfortunes hilarious, and had been trying not to laugh about it ever since Owen had gone outside to check the truck. This was simply the last straw.

It felt good. It had been weeks since she'd really laughed, not since before her fight with Meredith. She laughed until her sides ached and she dissolved into a fit of hacking that left her doubled over, chest burning, mouth thick phlegm.

"Here." The glass of water and the tissue thrust into her face were a relief. Never having been someone who cared about propriety, she didn't feel the least self conscious spitting into the tissue; it wasn't like she was going to keep all that gross stuff in her mouth and the sink was too far away for her to manage on wobbly legs. She crumpled the tissue and dropped it on the table, snatching up the glass of water and drinking it greedily, tipping half of it on her chest in her haste. Drops of water dribbled down her chin, enlarging the already-fair-sized puddle on the front of her T-Shirt. It made her feel like a child, which was both humiliating and infuriating.

"Maybe you should consider resting in bed." Owen's voice was soft. Soothing. The kind you'd use when talking to a child. It made her want to hit him.

"I'm fine," she snapped, hating how feeble and croaky her voice sounded. "Stop asking."

Owen sighed, retreating to the kitchen again, empty glass in tow. He set the glass down in the sink and snagged a dishtowel from the peg by the sink, tossing it deftly at her. Cristina was glad that it landed neatly on the arm of the chair; she wasn't sure she had the strength to reach for it if it had landed farther away.

"Nice throw," she said appreciatively, wanting desperately to talk about something other than her health. She was afraid that further conversation would lead to her finally admitting that Owen might actually be right; she was really tired, after all.

He shrugged nonchalantly, turning his attention to the kettle, which he'd just put on the stove. "I played baseball when I was younger."

"Oh." That was a branch of conversation that Cristina couldn't pretend to follow. She had never been one for athletics in school, but Owen was just the type. She could picture him on the field, muscular arms exposed by the sleeves of his jersey...

Cristina closed her eyes and the image shattered. The last thing she wanted to be doing right now was fantasizing about Owen. She bigger things to worry about, like the fact that she may or may not be able to get in to work tomorrow. She'd already missed two shifts, and—even though the Chief would be understanding if she couldn't make it because she was snowed in—she couldn't miss another one for the sake of her sanity. Being in close proximity with Owen Hunt turned her into some sort of lust-crazed teenager, which was very hard to keep a lid on. Even when she was sick, all she'd been able to think about—though they were more like hallucinations than actually thoughts—was him. That kiss in the boiler room haunted her, and—coupled with the memory of him throwing her up against the wall outside Joe's and now the dim memory of his lips brushing her forehead to check her temperature—made her dizzy with pent-up longing.

She'd come here to escape. She'd come out to the trailer—her own personal Dermatology—to get away from her crazy lust for Owen and give herself time and space to sort herself out, and had instead ended up stuck here with the very man she'd sought to avoid. The irony of this situation was almost laughable.

The kettle whistled shrilly, a sound that grated against Cristina's inner ears until Owen moved the kettle onto the counter. Silently, he pulled a mug out of the cupboard and filled it with water, adding a tea bag—a recent addition to the trailer; Derek wasn't a tea kind of guy—and a couple dollops of honey—where that came from she had no idea. To her newly lust-addled brain—courtesy of the baseball comment—all of it looked incredibly sexy. Had she had more strength, she would have had to try very hard not to jump him right then and there.

"Milk?" he asked calmly, oblivious to the effect he was having on her.

"Um, sure," Cristina replied, stunned. She wasn't a tea drinker, and had no idea whether or not milk was something she wanted, but it seemed to be a fairly common thing to put in tea, like adding cream to coffee. The hasty answer was probably a result of the fact that her ability to think rationally had gone completely out the window.

It wasn't until he handed her the mug that she noticed the jagged scar—_very sexy_ her subconscious whispered before she could squash it down—running across his knuckles. It was obviously new, the skin was still raw and red, and she knew if he were to bang it against something, it would start bleeding again. "What happened to your hand?" she asked, hoping for a particularly gruesome story to distract herself from the porny thoughts springing to mind regarding the abilities of that hand.

Owen glanced down at his hand, having completely forgotten what had happened to it. The jagged scab crossed his knuckles like a brand, a fiery reminder of his problem. _Beware!_ it seemed to scream. _PTSD alert!_ Rationally, he knew that Cristina wouldn't come to the same conclusion—at least not right away—but if anyone who had known him before—say Teddy, or any of the men who he'd had the honour of serving with (particularly the senior officers who had seen fit to dismiss him—honourably, but a dismissal none the less—shortly after the beginning of his last tour)—were to see it, that would likely be the first thing that came to mind. The knowledge made him want to hit something.

"Nothing," he said shortly, avoiding her gaze.  
>"Oh and the skin just split open of it's own accord, did it?" she asked dryly.<p>

"No," he muttered sullenly, clenching the hand in question reflexively into a fist. The urge to hit something—not excluding Cristina—was getting stronger.

"Well, then how did it happen?" she prodded, making Owen feel very much like a patient being chastised for withholding information from his doctor.

"I punched a tree," he admitted finally, with great reluctance.

Cristina stared at him like he had grown an extra head. "You punched a tree," she repeated, tone completely devoid of emotion.

"Yes." It was getting very hard to keep a lid on his frustration. He understood that what he had done was rash, impulsive, and very stupid, and her reaction wasn't making things any better.

"_Why_?"

Owen sighed, rubbing his face. This was where things got complicated. If he gave her the honest answer—_I was furious at you for being stupid enough to storm off by yourself into unfamiliar territory in a fucking blizzard and frustrated because I couldn't find you_—it would likely lead to more questions, which could in turn lead to a discussion about his PTSD. However, he wasn't so sure that he'd be able to lie to Cristina Yang. She seemed to be one of those people born with the uncanny knack to catch a lair. And getting caught in a lie would definitely lead to PTSD discussions—something he was desperately trying to avoid.

"How's the tea?" he asked instead, hoping to buy himself some time.

"Fine," she replied brusquely, not at all willing to be deterred. "My throat's feeling much better. Stop avoiding the question."

In the end, honesty prevailed. "I was frustrated that I couldn't find you."

"Oh." This, obviously, had not been what she was expecting. "Well, let me see it," she said, tone quickly becoming brisk as she slipped into doctor mode.

He expected her grip to be firm and professional, similar to the one they used on patients, but her touch was surprisingly gentle. She looked at the wound from several angles before prodding the scab gently with her fingertips. Owen flinched, not because it was painful, but because her touch was like an electric shock, leaving all the nerves in his hand tingling. Cristina seemed to be suffering similarly, because she dropped his hand and looked away hastily.

"Well, it's not serious." Her voice came out almost choked-sounding, like she was trying very hard to suppress something. Owen was having the same difficulty; he was incredibly aware of her presence—as well as her proximity—and the desire to reach over and kiss her was nearly overpowering.

"Well that's an acute observation," he snapped.

Cristina flinched as if he'd slapped her. He couldn't understand exactly where any of this anger was coming from either. It was just...too much. The pent up frustration at everything that had happened to her, at his PTSD, at not being able to touch her when he wanted to so badly; he just needed someone to take it out on. And she was here.

"Next time, maybe I'll just let it fester. It's not like you were paying it any attention." True to form, she was quick to recover with anger of her own.

"If you hadn't gone running out in the middle of a damn blizzard there wouldn't be anything to look at in the first place!"

Cristina's eyes widened disbelievingly and her mouth set in a thin, white line. "That's what this is about? So what if I got lost in the woods? For God's sake, Owen, get over it!"

"Get over it? You almost _died_, Cristina! In fact, had I not found you when I did, you would have died!" he snapped, unable to believe she could treat all that had happened as if it was nothing.

"Well, thanks for that. Maybe next time you should leave me there so you won't be burdened with having to look after me," she retorted, eyes blazing.

_Burdened?_ Did she honestly think she was a burden to him? He'd never heard anything so ridiculous in his life. "You shouldn't even have been out there in the first place! What would possess you—You didn't even have any idea where you were going! You wouldn't have been able to find your way in clear weather, let alone in a fucking blizzard!"

"Well, I wasn't exactly thinking about where I was going at the time! I was more focused on getting as far away from you as I possibly could!" she spat, fist clenching tighter around Ellis' diary. The rational part of Owen's brain—small as it may have been in that moment—warned that she might very well throw it at him if he wasn't careful.

"Just because I told Derek Shepherd that you were out here at the trailer with me? Why is that such a big deal, Cristina?" That was one thing about her he was never going to get. Why was it such a big deal that the two of them were stuck here? He didn't care about telling Derek, and he wouldn't care if she told Meredith, so why was it so important to her?

"Because he'll tell Meredith! And then she'll think—" She broke off, cheeks flushed, whether from anger or embarrassment, he wasn't sure.

"She'll think what? It's not a big deal, Cristina. We're both stuck here because of the weather. Lots of people are getting stuck places because of the storm. Nobody's going to think anything of it," Owen said, feeling some of the anger drain out of him.

Cristina sighed, a heavy, frustrated sound. "Because we—she knows that I—because of this," she spluttered, grabbing him by the collar of the shirt and pulling his mouth down to hers.

The kiss was in no way gentle. They were both filled with pent-up longing for each other and the vestiges of anger—both at each other and at themselves—all of which they took out on each other. She tasted of tea, sweet and warm, and it made Owen burn—badly. It had only been three days since they'd kissed, but it felt like years had passed, and at the same time, it felt like it had only been moments before. He swore he could hear the hissing of the boilers as her tongue probed into his mouth, battering at his own with a ferocious need that made it very hard for him to resist taking her right there. His hands tangled into her hair, the ebony curls tumbling wild and unbound around her face, tangled from days of tossing and turning in bed, and she felt like she was both floating and drowning at the same time. It was everything she had remembered from the boiler room and more—all the sensation much more poignant, fuelled by anger and lust that hadn't been there—or at least hadn't been as strong—the last time. _I've forgotten how good make-up sex is,_ she thought, and then immediately wished she hadn't. They weren't supposed to be doing that—but there was no telling what would happen now and if Owen...well, if it was anything like the way he kissed, _she_ wouldn't be saying no.

Eventually, the need for air pulled them both apart. Owen's face was flushed, his eyes blue pools of desire, hair standing up in tufts from where she had latched onto it, and Cristina was sure she looked equally dishevelled. She could hear the sound of her heart hammering against her ribcage, mingling with the sounds of her and Owen's laboured breaths. Sickness be damned, she wanted him now more than ever.

He seemed to catch on to her train of thought—though the fact that her gaze was sliding between him and the bed was a dead give-away—and, for a moment, she thought he might simply sweep her up and carry her away to oblivion, but instead he turned away, face hardening.

"I'd better go start shovelling," he said, quietly.

And with that, he grabbed his coat and left.


	11. Every Action Has A Consequence

**So this update took forever, and for that I'm sorry. School's gotten back in, and things are crazy while I'm getting used to the routine again, and trying to write three new chapters for stories, but the next update will be quicker, I promise. I'll try to write it super fast. **

**On another note, this is now officially the longest story I've got up here. :)**

**Also, huge thanks to all the reviewers! Glad you're still loving it, and thank you for bearing with me, even if it takes me forever to update. **

* * *

><p>He'd left. He'd just left. To <em>shovel<em>.

Damn him. _Damn him!_ Just when things were starting to get good, he had to go _shovel_. The shovelling hadn't been important twenty minutes ago when he was making her tea. Why now?

Cristina's mind was reeling. She didn't get it. He wanted her. That much was obvious. You didn't kiss like that when you weren't attracted to someone. So why was he walking away?

More than anything, she wanted to call Meredith. This was one of those times where she needed someone to freak out to, and the only person she ever freaked out to about anything was Meredith. She knew that Mer didn't understand men any better than she did, but at the very least, she lived with one, and might be able to offer some insight. Failing that, she would at least malign Owen until Cristina felt better. Besides, God only knew how many times she'd had to listen to Meredith freaking out about all her McDreamy problems and then expecting to get advice. Meredith, however, was off-limits, leaving Cristina with no one.

Feeling restless, but not strong enough to go outside and give Owen a piece of her mind, she picked up Ellis' journal again. After flipping through a few pages listlessly and trying valiantly to read, she gave up. It just wasn't captivating anymore. All the stories about cool surgeries made her yearn for the distraction and peace that work provided, and all the talk of secret meetings with Richard made her didn't help to take her mind off the current situation.

She wanted to hit him. He couldn't do this to her. He couldn't just leave, especially when he knew she wasn't strong enough to follow. That was like cheating. Not to mention cowardly. He wasn't supposed to be a coward; he was a war hero.

"Dammit, Meredith!" she hissed. Why did her person have to be so stuck-up? If she hadn't been so selfish, letting Cristina take the fall for the intern fiasco, Cristina wouldn't be on the verge of exploding because of all this crap with Owen.

There had to be something she could do to get this off her chest. Ranting to no one wasn't an option—she'd never been the talk-to-herself kind of girl. Meredith was her go-to person for rants, but that wasn't happening. There was no way in hell she was calling any of the other interns, and her mother wasn't even worth considering.

Her eyes alighted upon Ellis' diary, lying on the table. She wasn't a diary-writing girl, but there was something to that logic. Struck by inspiration, she opened the drawer under the coffee table—which she'd had the good sense to stock with pens and paper—pulled out some loose-leaf and a ballpoint pen, and began to write.

_Dear Ellis,_

_You have no idea how weird this is. Writing letters to a dead person is not something I've ever considered doing, but I'm a little desperate, and your daughter and I aren't speaking right now. So I've turned to this as a last resort. _

_ I've always been a career woman. Surgery comes first. Always. I've never let myself get distracted from what I do. And I know this sounds stupid, and the Ellis I met would totally not approve, but I'm reading your journals, and you and Chief Webber had some pretty serious shenanigans when you were my age, so you can't really judge. Besides, you're dead. _

_ There's this guy. He's a co-worker of mine, the new head of trauma. He's very sexy, and totally confident at work, which is definitely a huge turn on (and really hot). The first day I met him, he stapled his own wound shut—without anesthesia—because sutures would apparently take too long to heal. We have this thing: we've kissed (and made out) several times, and there's definitely chemistry, but he plays so hot and cold, which drives me crazy. I mean, you can't make out with someone, basically set up for sex, and then leave! Saying he has to go shovel. That's bullshit. The snow isn't going anywhere. _

_ He just drives me crazy sometimes. I get distracted at work, and we have all these secret flirting sessions, and then when things get serious, he bails! I just don't get men, sometimes._

_ Anyway, there's no point in asking for your advice because a) you're dead and b) I already know what you're going to say. (And, to be honest, as good as it is to be solely career-focused, this stuff is way better. Or at least I think it will be. I don't know because we haven't DONE anything yet!) I just needed to get this off my chest._

_Cristina Yang_

Satisfied with her handiwork, Cristina glanced over the letter one more time before ripping it to pieces. Some people might consider it a waste of paper, but it had served its purpose. It wasn't like she could keep it. Being found in possession of a letter to her best friend's dead mother might cause a few unwanted read flags. This was much better. No one ever had to know.

* * *

><p>When Owen was a child, his mother always told him that when he was angry, it was better to go and do something to blow off some steam rather than yelling at people. Teddy had suggested the same strategy to deal with his PTSD, and he was now discovering that it was equally effective for burning off desire.<p>

He had to admit, there was something therapeutic about it. It was an excellent way to let out his anger. Every time he lifted another shovel-full of snow, he could feel the tiniest bit of anger leech out of him.

He was furious with Cristina for being so bloody tempting, and for feeling the need to prove her point by kissing him. He was furious with his PTSD, for being a never-ending source of conflict in his life, and for making everything infinitely more complicated. He was furious with the weather for being so damned bizarre, and trapping him in a fucking trailer with the one woman capable of literally making him crazy, and then having her catch pneumonia, so that—even if he didn't have his PTSD to get in the way—he couldn't involve himself romantically with her without feeling supremely guilty. Above all, though, he was furious with himself. He shouldn't have let things go as far as they had. He should have kept a professional distance between himself and her, and shouldn't have let her examine his bloody hand. He should have kept a better lid on his temper, too; if he 'd been in control, and hadn't snapped at her about how stupid she was, she wouldn't have mentioned Meredith maybe knowing about their thing, and her subsequent kissing. He couldn't help feeling that this was all preventable, which was infuriating.

Cristina was probably confused, if not furious herself. She was the type to deal with something like this by ignoring him, or attempting to sever herself from him completely. Rationally, he knew he should probably go and apologize, but that would lead to explanations of why, which was treacherous waters, especially since the PTSD was something that couldn't be talked about.

Owen sighed, planting the shovel firmly in the snow. He'd been shovelling for the better part of forty-five minutes, and he'd barely gotten the porch cleared, let alone the pathway towards their vehicles. It was going to take hours to clear this away, hours of backbreaking work he couldn't ask Cristina to help with. Another reason to curse her being sick.

He should probably go check on Cristina. She was every doctor's worst nightmare; in fact, he wouldn't be surprised if came in to find her getting ready to go back to work. Her complete lack of respect for her own health and well-being drove him crazy. Her desperation to recover was only going to throw her into a relapse, which would only make her unhappier in the long run.

Their confrontation wasn't going to be easy. It would be awkward, and she would try her damnedest to make him feel embarrassed and cowardly, but he couldn't let his feelings get in the way. She was his patient, and—since she obviously wouldn't do it herself—he had to take care of her. Besides, he'd be much more upset if she were to die because she hadn't taken care of herself properly and he hadn't been bothered to make sure she was looked after. The guilt might very well kill him, if the heartache didn't.

Regardless of what she had to say, he didn't regret what he had done, and he wasn't going to defend his actions to her. He had done the right thing.

He wasn't at all surprised to see that Cristina had abandoned her "resting" post in the chair by the door. She wasn't the type to sit still even when she was being supervised, let alone when she had a free reign. What did surprise him was that she had somehow managed to make it back to the bedroom again and was searching haphazardly through the closet.

"What the hell are you doing?"

The words slipped out before Owen could rein them in, his tone much harsher than he had intended it to be. Talk about getting off on the wrong foot.

"I'm freezing," she muttered, trying—and failing—to disguise the exhausted tremor in her voice.

Owen resisted the urge to scream in frustration. He'd never seen so bad a patient in all the years he'd been practicing medicine. And to be a doctor herself on top of that—well it either made her careless or stupid. "You could have mentioned that before instead of trying to do everything yourself," he replied stiffly.

"Well you weren't exactly around," she snapped, glaring at him as if to indicate she thought this was all his fault.

Owen sighed and combed a hand through his hair, a gesture he used out of habit whenever he was frustrated or exasperated, both of which he was feeling now. He wasn't going to apologize, but he got the feeling that nothing less would thaw Cristina's frosty exterior. "That's not the point. The point is—"

"—that if you'd been around instead of outside shovelling the fucking _snow_, I wouldn't have been forced to potentially endanger my health."

The intensity of her anger took him by surprise. He had expected to be ignored, or treated with the casual non-chalance that most people received. Boiling fury was not a reaction anyone normally gleaned from Cristina Yang, and yet here she was, dropping the f-bomb and shooting daggers with her fiery brown eyes. She was formidable, and at the same time, a little bit terrifying.

"The point," he continued forcefully, "is your complete and utter lack of regard for your own health and well-being. You're only going to make yourself sicker by trying to push yourself to recover." He had to stick to the point, letting himself get sidetracked would just cause unnecessary exertion for the both of them, which was the last thing that Cristina needed.

"Which wouldn't be of any concern if I hadn't had to do this myself."

Owen's patience, something he had been known for before Iraq, was running very thin. He didn't have time to deal with her childish behaviour. If she wanted to sulk, well, he had better things to do with his time than stand here and witness it. "I'm not having this discussion now, Cristina. I haven't done anything wrong."

"Oh so it's okay for you to basically have sex with someone and then abandon them before the sex actually happens? Is that how it normally works for you, because it sure as _hell_ doesn't work for me," she spat, clinging to the doorframe for support.

"We weren't even close to having sex!" Owen protested. He felt a tiny pang of guilt for fighting with her; it was taxing in her weakened state, and, if he wasn't careful, she might collapse soon, but he was too incensed by her last comment to stop now. To think she had such a low opinion of him that she would honestly believe that this occurred on a regular basis made his blood boil. He wasn't the kind of man to leave a woman in the lurch, but, at the same time, he wasn't a man to compromise his honour or hers.

"That is _so_ not the point!" she cried, cheeks turning red. It seemed that she had finally snapped, something that he'd never seen before. "The point is that you left!"

"Because I had to!" he retorted. "We were headed somewhere both of us were going to regret."

It was like a bomb had dropped in the room. Cristina's face shuttered off completely, becoming frostily impassive, while Owen wished he could retract the words, or at the very least rephrase them. None of that had come out the way he wanted it to, and he wasn't sure there was anything he could do to repair the damage they had done.

"Well I thank you for your chivalrous intentions," she said eventually, her tone cold and expressionless. "I can assure you they won't be needed again."

Owen sighed, rubbing a hand across his face desperately. This was not how things were supposed to go at all. "Listen, Cristina—" he began pleadingly, trying desperately to make her understand that those words hadn't come out the way he meant them to, but she wasn't in the mood to listen.

"Just go, Owen. You obviously have better things to do than waste your time with me. That much you've made very clear." And with that, she turned and stumbled towards the bed. Owen's heart ached at the sight of her painful crossing, and he had to try very hard to refrain from helping her. That would only make a bad situation worse. Not sure what else to do, he turned and left the trailer.

* * *

><p>The plan had been to avoid Owen all day. After the disastrous conversation in the early afternoon, Cristina had resolved that she was going to have nothing more to do with the man. He was outside shovelling, which was now a good thing in her mind because it meant there was less and less time before she could finally get away from here and get back to work. She didn't want to have to spend another second in the company of Owen Hunt, who had made it perfectly clear that he didn't want to have anything more to do with her. She didn't need a man in her life to make her happy. Men just got in the way. Being in a relationship would make her life more complicated, make her more distracted at work, and ultimately affect her performance as a surgeon, which she couldn't afford. Especially not when she already had a black mark on her record.<p>

The best-laid plans, however, don't always work out. One of the fatal flaws in Cristina's plan became painfully apparent less than half and hour after Owen's departure: she was hungry. The lack of eating for the last couple of days had finally caught up with her, and the pangs of hunger were voracious and non-stop. Cooking was never a skill that Cristina had mastered, and, despite her refusal to rest and recuperate, she knew that a diet of cereal wasn't going to do her any good. It had been ages since anyone had brought groceries out to the trailer, and since neither Meredith nor Cristina could cook, the food that was here was in no way nutritious for someone recovering from pneumonia. Not to mention that Cristina's stomach probably couldn't hold anything heavier than soup or maybe toast, neither of which she could make.

Owen—as had been demonstrated that very first morning they were stuck together, what seemed like ages ago—had some cooking abilities. He'd certainly be able to make soup or toast, and since starving wasn't going to get her to work any time soon, she was going to have to ask him to make her something. Which would mean talking to him. And asking for his help _again_—another thing she had vowed never to do again.

The situation left Cristina at an impasse with herself. On the one hand, she had no desire to so much as speak to Owen, let alone ask him for help. On the other hand, she really needed something to eat, preferably something that she wouldn't be vomiting up twenty minutes afterwards. She could always wait and see if he would come in and cook anything for himself, but if he didn't, she was out of luck. Cooking for herself wasn't an option; she had a feeling Derek would be _really_ pissed if she destroyed the trailer.

The sound of feet stomping outside the trailer replaced the scraping of the shovel, and alerted Cristina of Owen's return inside. She felt a moment of dread at the thought of having to talk to him again after the last disastrous conversation, but it didn't last long, anger coming to take its place. She wasn't going to let men get in her way anymore. She really should have learned her lesson after Burke, but she'd hoped that there'd be something between her and Owen—if nothing more than really great sex—to reassure herself that she was still attainable. She was smart, confident, reasonably attractive, really talented in the bedroom, and had never really doubted her appeal with the opposite sex. There were men for her when she needed them, and when they ceased to fulfil her needs, she discarded them. No hard feelings, no strings attached. After Burke, however, she'd begun to doubt herself. She hadn't been the one doing the leaving, but rather the one being left, and while she realized now it was for the best, she hadn't felt that way at the time. She'd given up so much of herself for him, changed herself into this person willing to endanger her career and compromise staunch values for someone else—a man no less—that he had left her at a loss, unsure of who she was and how to put herself back together.

The door opened, and Owen breezed in, carrying a flurry of snow with him. His nose and cheeks were read from the cold—the same shade, she couldn't help noticing with a small smile, as his hair—and there were a few stray snowflakes in his hair, making her fingers itch to brush them away. He was in relatively good spirits, humming to himself as he stomped the worst of the snow off his boots, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm. He looked deliciously attractive, flushed from exertion and cold, and she could feel the slow burn of desire creeping up unbidden from somewhere deep inside of her.

The feeling didn't last long, though. Owen caught sight of her when he went to take off his boots and froze, the humming dying abruptly. There was a long, awkward pause that even Cristina couldn't fill with words, and—despite her resolution that she wasn't going to let men get the better of her ever again—she couldn't meet those soulful blue eyes. After a moment, realizing that Cristina wasn't going to ask him to leave again, he sat down and removed both boots and then his coat. The silence stretched on, threatening to suffocate them both, and she didn't know what to do, or even what to think. She just wished that the ground would swallow her up whole and end this misery.

"Cristina, I'm sorry."

At first, she was so startled that Owen had said anything to her at all that she couldn't even process what he had said. Once she did, however, she was even more surprised. An apology was the last thing she'd expected to get from him. He may not have been as stubborn and staunch as she was, but he definitely wasn't one to back down when he knew he hadn't done anything wrong. He stood his ground, no matter what.

She knew that she should probably say something, but her brain had stopped working. Once again, he'd taken her by surprise, and not for the first time, had literally left her at a loss for words. Taking her silence as some indication of quasi-forgiveness, he continued.

"I shouldn't have shouted at you like that. It was wrong to pick a fight with you when you're in this condition, and I should have known better."

_What?_

She wasn't entirely sure what she had been expecting only that this wasn't it. He was apologizing for picking a fight with her? She was the one that had picked the fight, not him. She'd been angry with him for leaving her in the lurch, and frustrated by her weakened state and inability to do anything for herself that she'd just needed something to lash out at. If he had anything to apologize for, it was leaving her to go _shovel_.

"Cristina?"

He was waiting for her to say something, but she had no idea what she was supposed to say. She was so angry she couldn't even think straight. He shouldn't have been fighting with her because of her _condition_? She wasn't an invalid. Just because she was recovering from pneumonia didn't mean he had to treat her like she was a glass doll.

"How are you feeling?"

Owen seemed to have assumed that she had accepted his apology and just chosen not to reply, thus prompting him to barrel ahead with questions about her health like nothing had happened between them. Her frustration at his constant prodding succeed in overpowering her verbal drought, and she suddenly found that she had difficulty giving Owen Hunt a piece of her mind.

"I'm feeling a little under the weather right now. You needn't worry, though," she continued, seeing the look of concern on his face, "it's just a result of my _condition_." She spat the last word with as much loathing and venom as she could muster, and was gratified to see that Owen looked slightly shocked.

He didn't take long to recover, though. The shock at Cristina's sharp retort was quickly replaced with frustration at her childish behaviour. She was taking this entirely too far. Was it too difficult for her to accept a simple apology? He ran a hand through his hair desperately, clenching the other one into a fist in a hope to dispel the urge to punch something. "Cristina—"

"Don't 'Cristina' me," she snapped. "It'll just start another argument, and we all know what that will do to my health."

Godammit, she was infuriating. He was beginning to wonder how anyone put up with her, he included. Of all the women to have an inexplicable attraction to, it had to be one who drove him to distraction with her stubbornness. "All I was trying to say was that you don't need anymore strain right now. You're body's been under a lot of stress lately, and it needs to rest and heal."

"And who's fault is that?" came the saucy retort.

"_What_?" She really was getting unreasonable. Deciding that this was now somehow his fault? That was just ridiculous. He hadn't had anything to do with her decision to storm off into the woods in the middle of a damn blizzard, nor with her decision not to pay any attention to where the hell she was going.

"If you had never come here in the first place, I never would have had any reason to go off into those woods." The accusation in her voice was thick, and it stung. Despite all her harshness and unfailing ability to be blunt, he had never known Cristina to be an intentionally cruel person.

"Well if you hadn't overreacted when I told you I phoned Shepherd, you wouldn't have had any need to go storming off into the woods, either," he snapped, unable to bite back the harsh retort. This was in no way his fault, and she had no right to be blaming him, especially when he was the reason she was still around.

"You know exactly why I had the reaction that I did," she hissed, dark eyes murderous. "Just because it doesn't mean anything to you doesn't mean it didn't—" she broke off here, a pained look crossing her face, unable to continue, and suddenly Owen understood. This wasn't about her getting lost in the woods at all, or even about his comment on her condition. This was about her trying to salvage her pride because she had admitted to being attracted to a man who she thought didn't care about her. Owen cursed having not attempted to correct his misstep earlier.

"It didn't mean nothing to me."

His words resulted in another stunned silence from Cristina.

"You—" she began, and then trailed off, obviously not knowing what to say next.

"I should have clarified that earlier," he said quietly, avoiding her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"But you—"

Any other time, Owen would have been pleased and amused to realize that he had rendered Cristina Yang completely speechless twice in the last twenty minutes. Now, however, the thought didn't even cross his mind. "I don't regret stopping when I did. But not because I didn't want to," he added quickly, catching sight of the look on Cristina's face.

There was a brief silence, as Cristina digested these words and Owen gathered the courage to continue. She was the first to break the silence.

"Then why?"

He sighed. He wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to say these words now and expose himself so utterly to someone as ruthless as Cristina, but there was no way around it now. After all, it wasn't like he could lie to her without causing another catastrophe. And God knew, they'd had enough drama these last few days to last a lifetime. It was ridiculous.

"Because I wanted our first time to be special."

For the third time in the span of twenty minutes, Cristina Yang was speechless.


	12. Nicknames

__**So it's been WAY too long since I last updated, but life and school have been so busy that I haven't had any time to write. Good thing is that Christmas break is almost here, which means I'll have a lot of time to get caught up. There will probably be a couple more chapters and maybe an epilogue...we'll see. **

**Anyway, HUGE thanks to everyone who reviewed a very long time ago. Happy reading!**

_I wanted our first time to be special._

Owen's words rang out in the silence. She didn't know what to say. He wanted their—oh God. She felt like such a fool. She'd been so adamant that he was just some asshole, or too concerned about her condition, or not interested in her at all, when he'd really just wanted to make their first time together something special. She wasn't the hearts and flowers type, but she couldn't deny being touched—and humiliated—by his romantic tenderness.

She felt the need to say something in response to that, but had no idea what. Her pride was already wounded too much for an apology to be in the realm of the possible, and, if she was honest with herself, apologizing had never really been her thing to begin with. Apologizing meant that you had done something wrong, and Cristina Yang didn't acknowledge failure.

"I—" she began, realizing as soon as the words were out of her mouth that she had nothing with which to follow them up.

"You know," Owen said lightly, peeling off his coat to reveal lovely, toned biceps—the kind that inspired many naughty fantasies—peeping out from underneath the sleeves of his T-Shirt, "an apology would be a good start."

She could tell from the way he grinned up at her as he bent down to unlace his boots that this was something she was never going to be able to live down. Unfortunately for Owen, Cristina wasn't the type to give people what they wanted; in fact, depending on the person, she sometimes went out of her way to make sure they didn't get what they wanted. It made her seem like a bitch, but she was okay with that. It gave her the upper hand, not to mention it was incredibly satisfying to frustrate the other person.

"Yeah, but I don't do that thing where you say you're sorry and then I say I'm sorry and then we hug or something," she replied nonchalantly.

Owen raised his eyebrows. "So you're not going to apologize."

She shook her head. "And you won't either."

"What do I have to apologize for?" he asked, frowning. "I'm not the one who made wild assumptions about your behaviour."

"No, but you _were_ the one who abandoned me in my hour of need," she said patiently. "Which, as far as regular people would be concerned, warrants an apology. I'm not too fussed, though," she added, feigning casual indifference. "Apologies have never really been my thing."

Owen nodded slowly, eyebrows raised in disbelief. "Duly noted." He seemed surprised and might have even found this a little bizarre, though Cristina wasn't sure why. He must have figured out by now that she didn't waster her time with trivial things like apologies.

"I am kind of hungry, though," Cristina continued conversationally. "If you're looking for something to do, that is."

"And you couldn't feed yourself because...?"

Cristina shrugged. "I just thought that cereal wasn't a very nutiritous diet for someone who's recovering from pneumonia." As if to illustrate her point, she was overcome by a fit of coughing.

Owen sighed. "Are you trying to tell me you can't cook?"

She, Cristina Yang, cook? The thought was laughable. "Yup. Hopeless."

"Right." He set off towards the kitchen with determination. "Well, let's see what we have."

"Probably not much," Cristina said helpfully. "Meredith is the one who does the grocery shopping, and she can't cook either. Besides, it's not like we spend a lot of time out here."

"Then how, might I ask, have you two survived?" Owen asked, glancing despairingly at the practically empty cupboards. "I mean, there is nothing here, Cristina. Nothing."

Cristina rolled her eyes. He was being melodramatic. Really. It wasn't that bad. "Well, I told you, it's not like we spend a lot of time here." Honestly. He'd been living in this place for the last three days, surely he could see that it wasn't built to lodge people long-term.

"Still." Owen shook his head disbelievingly. "There's nothing here but a box of Cap'n Crunch and two cans of chicken soup."

"Further proof that Meredith is the one who does the grocery shopping. I hate Cap'n Crunch."

He shook his head again, this time in amusement. She really was ridiculous. There was no food in the trailer, and God only knew how long they'd be stuck here, and she didn't even seem to care. With an attitude like that, it was a miracle she was still alive. If cereal had never been invented, she probably would have starved by now. Which was his real concern: that they were going to run out of food. There were two cans of chicken soup, each which made four servings, and a couple boxes of cereal—some, he noted with relief, that weren't Cap'n Crunch. It was enough food for now, but he had no idea how long it was going to take for the ploughs to get out here. According to the reports he'd heard on the radio—he'd managed to get his truck unburied enough to turn it on—ploughing in the city was just beginning. Depending on how much work they had to do there, he and Cristina could be out of here tomorrow, or it could be another few days before they could get anywhere. He didn't even know if the ploughs would come all the way out to the trailer. Did they even know anybody lived out here?

Owen wasn't too worried about himself; food wasn't something that he needed much of. It was Cristina who he was concerned about; recovering from pneumonia required a specific diet that would help her regain the strength and nutrition she had lost, and she sure as hell wasn't going to get it from a box of cereal. He didn't even know if she could stomach that right now. He'd have to save all of the soup for her, just to be on the safe side. He could live with cereal for a few days.

There was a pot in the cupboard under the sink. Owen sent a silent prayer to God that Derek was a serious cook and therefore kept his trailer stocked with good-quality cook-wear. It made his job a hell of a lot easier, and after everything he had gone through these last couple of days, he was more than happy to take the easy way out. Cristina may have thought that she had it bad, but she wasn't the one who had to take care of herself in a trailer in the middle of nowhere with limited supplies during a blizzard.

He filled the pot with water from one of several large jugs Derek stored next to the fridge—another Godsend because the pipes appeared to be frozen—added the soup, and set it on the stove to boil. Knowing there wasn't much he could do until it was cooked, he settled down in the small armchair in the living room area to wait. Cristina had picked Ellis' journal again while he was busy in the kitchen, but he could tell from the pace at which she flipped the pages that she wasn't really paying any attention to what she was reading—if she was even reading at all.

This surprised him. While she had never really struck him as the reading type, he knew she wasn't the kind of girl to lose focus when she was immersed in something she thought was important—and given the way she had been roaming around the hospital with her nose buried in those little black books for the last month was a pretty good indication that she considered them important. This was the first time he hadn't seen her absolutely absorbed in what she was reading, and he was pretty sure it wasn't because the entries weren't interesting. Knowing this made him feel a little bit relieved; he obviously wasn't the only one who was feeling a little distracted by their proximity.

"So what's it about?" Owen tried to keep his voice casual, as if he were simply making small talk instead of not-so-subtly proving that she wasn't actually paying any attention to it.

Cristina's head snapped up like she'd been shocked, the journal falling from her hands. "What?"

"The journal." He gestured casually to the little black book threatening to slip off her lap. "You've had your nose stuck in it for weeks now, so it's got to be interesting."

"Oh." She looked away, twisting her fingers in her lap. He wasn't entirely sure what it was that was making her feel so uncomfortable. He knew that she might be distracted by his presence—not to be egotistical; God knew he was equally affected—but as fat as he knew, he wasn't doing anything that would make her feel that way. Cristina wasn't the type who felt uncomfortable in many situations. "Well, it's Ellis'."

"Ellis Grey?" Now Owen could understand the appeal. Ellis Grey was probably one of the greatest surgeons of their time. The entire medical community had mourned her death a couple of years ago. Her personal diary would definitely be considered a gold mine to Cristina Yang. The only thing that perplexed him slightly about all this was how she had gotten them. He would have thought they'd have been property of her family. "Where'd you get them from? I would have thought they'd be part of her estate."

"I stole them," she replied, face deadly serious.

"What?" he asked warily, not entirely sure she was telling the truth. She may have been a surgical junkie, but this was taking it a little far.

Cristina stared at him like he had just told her he was quitting his job to join the circus, effectively dissipating any awkwardness that may have existed earlier. "Well of course not. They're Meredith's."

There was a brief pause. Owen was still a little baffled. The journals were Meredith's?

"Come on," Cristina said in disbelief, seeing the confusion on his face. "Meredith Grey? Ellis Grey?" She paused dramatically, waiting for him to connect the dots. How could he not know this? Everyone knew Meredith and Ellis were related.

"You mean Meredith Grey is Ellis Grey's daughter?"

Cristina rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me you didn't know that._ Everyone_ knows that."

"Well obviously not _everyone_," Owen replied, trying to ignore the fact that Cristina had possibly just not so subtly insulted his intelligence. Just because he didn't know every single thing she did didn't make him stupid. How was he supposed to know Meredith was Ellis Grey's daughter? Grey was a fairly common last name, not to mention the fact that Ellis had never really struck him as the mothering type. He would have thought she'd have thought kids to be a burden.

Cristina waved her had impatiently, clearly indicating she thought this technicality to be highly insignificant. "Whatever. I suppose you can be forgiven because you're still sort of new. You weren't there when Ellis was admitted."

"Admitted? At Seattle Grace?"

"Yep." She smirked. "Twice."

Part of him wasn't surprised. From what he'd heard—and even witnessed to a certain extent—extraordinary occurrences were not uncommon. The staff—surgical in particular—had a reputation for treating each other with a little less than professionalism, a trap that he, too, had fallen into. Though, as his mother always used to say, you can't choose who you love. "That must have been hard on Meredith." He could only imagine what it would be like for him if his mother were admitted.

"Yeah, no kidding. Meredith, like, died. Couldn't wait until Ellis was released."

This surprised Owen. Meredith hadn't cared that her mother was in the hospital? His surprise must have shown on his face because Cristina continued, "Oh, don't look so shocked. There's a reason no one pegged Ellis Grey as the mothering type."

Oh. Well, this, he supposed, could be expected. He had, after all, been thinking the same thing moments before. He'd met Ellis once, and the brief encounter had not left him at all inclined to think of her as a mother. "Poor Meredith," he said softly, trying to envision the kind of childhood she must have had with a mother like Ellis Grey. It explained why she was so motivated to be a surgeon, though. "She must have had a rough time of it."

"Yeah, well, she wasn't the only one," Cristina snapped. She wasn't particularly interested in talking about Meredith right now, and especially not about how hard Meredith had had it. Cristina hadn't had it easy, either. "My mother spent my whole life trying to turn me into some kind of girly, boy-crazy airhead."

"What's wrong with being girly?" Owen asked with a grin as he got up to stir the soup, glad for a chance to lighten the mood. "You are a woman after all."

"I am a surgeon. I cut. I suture. I kick ass. Girly people don't do that. They're all pink, and frilly, and gushy." She shuddered at the thought of being condemned to such a lifestyle.

Owen chuckled, spying several flaws in that logic. "Stevens is like that, and she's a surgeon," he pointed out, hunting in the cupboard for a couple of bowls. "Damn good one, too."

Cristina frowned; not liking that Owen might be implying Izzie was as good as she was. Izzie was a good surgeon, but she wasn't _that_ good. "We call her Barbie for a reason," she retorted.

Owen snorted, but quickly collected himself, not wanting to be rude. Izzie was a good surgeon, and a good person. It wasn't her fault she bore the uncanny resemblance to a Barbie doll. "Well, I will admit it's apt."

She smirked, sensing some hesitation on his part. "You're not against nicknaming people, are you? Because if you are, you've come to work at the wrong hospital." She'd really been hoping that he wouldn't be all goody and rule abiding, what with his being a badass army surgeon and all that. If he was, well, she'd seriously misjudged him.

Owen wasn't at all surprised that everyone had nicknames, nor would he be surprised to learn that Cristina and her group were the primary nicknamers. It sounded just like their kind of thing. Hell, it sounded just like the kind of thing the hospital staff would do. He didn't mind it for the most part—God knew there'd been plenty of nicknaming in the army—but it was important to know when to stop, especially working in a hospital—because he was certain Cristina's penchant for nicknaming didn't stop at her colleagues.

Realizing Cristina was looking at him with that scrutinizing look that meant she was waiting for an answer, he shrugged. He considered elaborating to say that he didn't mind so long as they knew when to call it quits, but realized that she'd probably consider it to be a lecture and would tune him out. Instead, he said, "Does everyone have a nickname?"

Cristina contemplated this, trying to keep the smile off her face. It wasn't right to say that everyone had a nickname—they didn't—but there were many of their colleagues who did. "Well, there's McDreamy and McSteamy—Shepherd and Sloan," she added, seeing the blank look on Owen's face, "Then there's Bambi, Evil Spawn, she-Shepherd, the Nazi, and, well, you know Stevens is Barbie."

Owen blinked, shocked. Cristina didn't understand what the big deal was. They were all perfectly fitting; in fact, she was surprised he couldn't figure out who was who right away. It really wasn't that difficult.

"So let me get this straight," he began, getting a couple of cowls out of the cupboard, "Shepherd and Sloan are McDreamy and McSteamy?"

Cristina nodded. "McDreamy is...well, you know, dreamy, what with the perfect hair and the charm and the leaning and stuff, and McSteamy...well, that should be self-explanatory." She'd thought McDreamy would have been obvious too.

Owen took a moment to digest this, ladling soup into bowls. "I suppose they're fitting," he said finally.

_No kidding,_ she thought.

"And the others are..." he trailed off, setting the bowls on the table. Cristina took a moment to soak up the warmth wafting off the top of the bowl, breathing in the familiar scent of chicken soup before continuing. "Bambi is George because of the whole timid-nice-guy-big-eyes thing, Evil Spawn is Alex—again, obvious; he's such an ass—she-Shepherd is—was—Dr Montgomery Shepherd—"

"Shepherd? As in Derek Shepherd?"

Cristina nodded, having completely forgotten that Owen hadn't been witness to the whole 'McDreamy's married' debacle. "Yeah. She's his wife. Well, ex-wife now. Lives in L.A."

"Shepherd was married?" This was news to Owen. He'd assumed that Derek had always been with Meredith.

Again, Cristina nodded, shovelling a spoonful of soup into her mouth. "Oh yeah. Nobody knew about her until she showed up here all gorgeous and successful. She was the head of Neo-Natal for a while and used to wear these salmon pink scrubs...it was awful. She and Meredith hated each other."

Owen frowned. Meredith? Had she suffered from an unrequited crush on Shepherd that was shattered by the arrival of his wife, or perhaps..."They weren't together, were they?"

"Who, Meredith and McDreamy? Yeah. Until his wife showed up, that is." She chuckled to herself, remembering all too well the upheaval that had been caused by the arrival of Addison Montgomery. "They were having this little secret fling or relationship or whatever—which wasn't actually so secret because everyone knew about it—and then she-Shepherd just arrived, and things...well, they weren't good," she finished hastily, catching sight of the incredulous look on Owen's face.

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Things like this weren't supposed to happen in normal hospitals. Attendings didn't have romantic relationships with interns period, let alone when they themselves were married. And to think he'd thought Shepherd was a good guy...

"So Grey and Shepherd were together and then his wife just showed up?" he said finally, endeavouring to understand how the hospital could still function when there was this much drama going on.

Cristina shrugged, toying idly with her spoon. Any excitement she had felt at sharing the gossip was gone, perhaps because of his obvious discomfort. "Basically. We called him McBastard for a while. But in his defence, she did cheat on him first. With McSteamy. That's why he came out here. So I suppose Meredith should thank her for sending McDreamy her way."

Owen didn't say anything for a minute. He wasn't sure what you were supposed to say to something like that. It wasn't necessarily that he was surprised: the degree of familiarity and, oftentimes, casual relationships between the surgical staff at Seattle Grace wasn't a secret, nor was the fact that Grey and Shepherd were together. What surprised him was simply how the hospital could continue to function under such circumstances: how had Grey and Shepherd been able to maintain any degree of professionalism after the arrival of his wife? Why hadn't the Chief intervened?

He shook his head incredulously, staring at his soup. The work atmosphere here was so alarmingly different from that in the army that it had been a little bit of a culture shock. He remembered feeling rather overwhelmed that first time Torres had gone on in the scrub room after a surgery, divulging way more personal information than he ever wanted to know about a colleague. He'd sworn to himself that he'd be professional, that being solely focused on work was the only way to keep his demons at bay, and now look at him. It hadn't even taken him two months to fall for a colleague—though, admittedly, he'd known they had chemistry when he'd started; that exam room kiss still lingered in his mind. And, despite the fact that he'd sworn he wouldn't, he wasn't at all averse to breaking his own promise. He needed a fresh perspective, something more effective than alcohol and insomnia to chase the demons away, and she was the perfect thing. She was professional enough that they would be able to fly under the gossip radar, and besides, it wasn't like he could stay away from her.

"Wow," he said finally, hoping to end the awkward silence. "I missed a lot didn't I?"

Cristina looked up from her soup, grinning. "Yeah. You've got a lot of catching up to do."

Her smile was infectious; Owen couldn't help but smile along with her. This was definitely something he could use to his advantage. "You're going to have to help me with that I guess."

"Oh really?" Her eyebrows arched skywards. "And what makes you think _I'm _going to be the one helping you?"

"Well, you wouldn't want me to suffer, would you? I didn't peg you as the type to be intentionally cruel," he said, feigning hurt.

She laughed, swallowing another mouthful of soup. "Well, there's a lot you need to know..."

"...And we aren't going anywhere any time soon," he finished, gesturing outside. "Or had you forgotten we're basically buried out there?"

Cristina's lips curled into a coy smile. "Well, I would have thought that given the amount of time you spent out there shovelling that we might be un-buried." She shrugged, stirring her soup. "Oh well. I guess you're not as strong as I thought."

_Ouch_. Owen couldn't deny the sting of her words, though at the same time, he was pleasantly surprised that she thought he was strong. "I'm going to pretend you didn't just insult my manliness there," he said, casually swallowing a spoonful of soup, "and attribute that comment to your lack of comprehension of the sheer amount of snow outside."

"Me? Insult your manliness? I have no idea what you're talking about," she replied sweetly, the perfect picture of innocence.

The desire to show her exactly how manly he was almost overpowering, but he resisted, focusing his attention on the bowl of soup in front of him and not Cristina's deliciously sexy smile. "I don't believe that for one second, but I'm willing to set aside my disbelief for argument's sake."

"Well good." Her tone was brisk, the typically business-like tone she adopted at work back again. "Because _I_ certainly won't be bringing you up to speed otherwise. And I really don't know that you want it getting out that oh-so-professional Dr Hunt is actually a secret gossip fiend." That last comment sparked another devious grin again, making it even harder for Owen to control himself.

"Right," he said, trying very hard to think of the most disgusting surgery he'd ever performed, as so to keep his mind of the temptation across the table. "And you're so different from everyone else."

"Your secret's safe with me." She winked, setting down her spoon. "Let's get started."


End file.
